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Mary Astell is often attributed as being England’s first feminist because of her writing which questioned gender politics of the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth century. For the time period, Astell’s writing was groundbreaking. She examined the nature of gender bias in a manner that overturned commonplace conceptions of gender and marriage and supported female autonomy and equal education opportunity. In A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Astell explores the role of custom in the perpetuation of female subjugation, and she asserts that it would be most beneficial for women to ignore the custom of favoring the physical body over the mind in exchange for a focus on mental and spiritual development.
Get original essayAstell writes about the importance of female thought, and she strongly believes that women should focus on expanding their minds rather than obsessing over their bodies. In Some Reflections upon Marriage, Astell continues her early feminist examination of gender politics. Astell examines the marriage customs of the time period, and she subverts from the idea that a woman’s one true purpose is to marry and have children. The rigidly gender-biased climate that Astell lived in made her writing seem radical at the time, but modern feminist critics may recognize that Astell’s version of feminism was particularly conservative in comparison to modern feminism. While Astell was very much in favor of some degree of female autonomy, her writing demonstrates a clear influence from the overpowering patriarchal views of her environment that weakens her position as a feminist by modern perspectives. Some aspects of Astell’s argument on gender demonstrate an incredibly forward way of thinking for the 17th century and 18th century.
In A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Astell blames societal customs for the subjugation of women and the women’s acceptance of their subjugate roles. She contends that society’s emphasis on beauty and the physical self forces women to ignore their spiritual selves. Astell writes, “’Tis custom, therefore, that tyrant custom, which is the grand motive to all those irrational choices which we daily see made in the world, so very contrary to our present interest and pleasure, as well as to our future” (356). Astell’s exploration of the source of gender bias is very much aligned with modern feminist ideology. There is still a modern belief that societal customs, such as the sexual objectification of women, continue to impact the perception of femininity and the role of women in society. In Feminist Interpretations of Mary Astell, Alice Sowaal and Penny A. Weiss note the contemporary ideology of Astell’s assertions.
They write: Recent scholars have highlighted the modern feminist sentiment in these words. […] Astell suggests that women are disadvantaged compared to men—or that they have a certain “incapacity” by virtue of their womanhood—but that their incapacity is a social construct rather than the product of nature or biology. (Sowaal and Weiss) Astell’s logic in A Serious Proposal to the Ladies seems strongly feministic in its defense of women and their capabilities. Like modern feminists, Astell recognizes the role that societal norms play in a woman’s ability to be seen as equal. In writing A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Astell was not necessarily meaning to be a proponent of radical women’s equality. Astell, a supporter of the Church of England, only wished to encourage women to seek the same comprehension skills as men so that the women could understand their religion on a deeper, more spiritual level. Astell “argued that reason infuses human beings with divinity” (Johns 31).
Her desires were to bring women closer to their spirituality, but this implies that she believed that women were, in fact, not then capable of using reason on their own accord. By modern feminist standards, it could be argued that Astell was slightly misogynistic in her perception of women being base and currently incapable of critical thought. Modern feminists may recognize that, although Astell seems to be in favor of some form of equality, her ideology is based on patriarchal assumptions of women. Astell writes, “By a habitual inadvertency we render ourselves incapable of any serious and improving thought, till our minds themselves become as light and frothy as those things they are conversant about” (356). This ideology is inadvertently influenced by patriarchal views.
Although Astell means to improve women with her writing, it can be seen that her perception of women was very much influenced by the societal norms of the time period. For Astell to believe that women need improvement, she is acknowledging the belief that women are, like patriarchal ideals suggest, insufficient in their current form and have something to improve upon. She presents women as being almost oblivious to and unconcerned with their proposed shortcomings. This notion can be viewed as a reinforcement of the emptyheaded female stereotype of Astell’s time and of today. Astell's “proto-feminism,” as it is branded by William Kolbrener in Mary Astell: Reason, Gender, Faith, was certainly much more accommodating to the existing notion that women were inferior or flawed, whether from inherent corruption or societal influence, than modern feminism allows (193). Indeed, Astell’s feminism is so notably different from modern feminism that it necessitates a new word to describe it. “Proto-feminism” perfectly describes Astell’s ideology. While Astell did produce feministic concepts, they were truly conservative by today’s standards. Astell’s staunchly conservative religious and political views were in disagreement with any of her feminist ideals, and this weakens her position as a feminist, at least by modern perspectives.
Kinnaird notes, “In A Serious Proposal she makes no plea that the universities should admit women as well as men to enter the professions and take part in the public part of the nation” (Kinnaird 64). Astell’s concerns in A Serious Proposal were largely religious and did not necessarily champion women’s rights as a whole. In fact, she wants her readers to recognize that she is not speaking too far in favor of women’s equality. She writes, “We pretend not that women should teach in the church, or usurp authority where it is not allowed them; permit us only to understand our own duty” (361). She was more concerned with the female relationship to God than the female role in society when she explores the idea of the female autonomy, and she explicitly states that she does wish to change a woman’s role in society. Rather, she implies that women have false piety, and she offers them advice on how to improve their spiritualties. Astell is, by nature of the work itself, criticizing women in a manner that is incongruent with modern feminism. Her implication that women are incapable of understanding religion because they are suppressed by trivial customs casts a negative light on the female will, and it reinforces patriarchal stereotypes of women.
In Reflections upon Marriage, Astell asserts a more firm grounding for future feminist ideals in her examination of a gender politics in marriage. Still, her conflicting views are clear, and the contradictive nature of her arguments makes it difficult for modern feminists to agree with her writing entirely. As Patricia Springborg notes in Mary Astell: Theorist of Freedom from Domination, the conflict between Astell’s religious and political views and her championing for women’s causes “seems anomalous to modern readers” (32). When reflecting upon marriage, Astell tells women to choose their husbands wisely because they may otherwise be stuck with a tyrannical leader for a husband.
Astell also suggests that women might live more happily if they never marry. Her religious convictions pervade her reflection on marriage, as seen in the multiple Biblical references to female subjugation. Her feminist views and her religious views conflict a great deal in her Reflections upon Marriage. She establishes as a fact that once married, males are superior and females are inferior. She offers no advice on how to improve female subjectivity in marriage; rather, she suggests that the one solution is that women must be more careful in choosing their husbands. Modern feminists, if examining female subjugation in marriage, might recognize and criticize the presence of male entitlement, which Astell does, but she also focuses on the female role in choosing a husband, as if females are partially to blame for their subordination. Modern feminism is less in favor of laying blame on women than Astell’s proto-feminism is.
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Get custom essayIn conclusion, Mary Astell's position as England's first feminist is secure, but her feminism is very conservative in comparison to modern feminism. Astell theorized gender politics in a groundbreaking manner in A Serious Proposal to the Ladies and Reflections upon Marriage, but some of her ideology conflicts with a modern feminist perspective. Astell's writing demonstrates shortcomings in its feminist assertions, and this can be attributed to her religious and political convictions and the predominant view of female inferiority that existed in her society. Although Astell was a supporter of female autonomy to some extent, the effects of patriarchal ideology pervade her writing and weaken her feminist stance. In A Serious Proposal for the Ladies, she suggests that females are quite flawed and must improve in order to be considered intellectual equals. In her Reflections upon Marriage, her argument is disagreement with modern feminism in suggesting that women are the ones who must improve instead of men. Astell was a feminist by definition of the late 17th century and early 18th century, but her acceptance of certain aspects of patriarchal ideology is condemned by modern feminism.
In Book One of Richard Wrights novel “Native Son,” Mary Dalton is, to her parents’ disapproval, a member of the Communist movement set in 1930’s Chicago. Mary attempts to achieve her dream of extinguishing the barriers between African-Americans and Caucasians by treating Bigger Thomas in an extremely warm and informal manner. This sparks a sense of bewilderment in Bigger, who is accustomed to being treated inferiorly by the whites, and grows uncertain in how he should behave around her. Mary’s ignorance, naïve nature, and “good intentions” ultimately condemn her to a blazing furnace, metaphorically comparable to her form of “hell,” and her gruesome death proves to haunt Bigger in the form of searing flashbacks throughout the remainder of Book One.
Get original essayMary Dalton unwittingly induces her own demise in several ways. She brands her first impression on Bigger when she appears in a movie he watches. Her leisure lifestyle is characterized by abundant wealth and squandering, which fills Bigger with “a sense of excitement about his new job.” The fact that she has indirectly persuaded Bigger to accept the job vaguely, yet eventually results in her murder. On a more precise scale, a majority of Mary’s numerous actions also act as tinder that sets alight to her death. For example, she constantly moves within very close proximities of Bigger. He is able to “smell the odor of her hair” and at one point, Mary even has “her face some six inches from his.” Although Miss Dalton feels that these actions exude a welcoming feeling, it inevitably evokes an attraction in Bigger, with Mary being the object of interest. In addition, she also allows herself to become heavily intoxicated by drinking large quantities of rum with her Communist beau, Jan Erlone. When Mary arrives home with Bigger, she cannot reach her bedroom without assistance. Bigger escorts her, which leaves him alone with Mary in her room, presenting a troubling situation. As a result, Mary’s recklessness and overtly inviting manner contributes to her unfortunate fate.
Although Mary attempts to help African-Americans, she knows little about them. As a result, she immediately attempts to befriend Bigger just because he is black, not for who he is as an individual. She exemplifies this when she asks Jan if he knows any African-Americans, then states “I want to meet some.” In addition, she attempts to sing their “spirituals” but Bigger secretly acknowledges that it is the wrong tune. Afterwards, she further demonstrates her lack of knowledge when she states that she wants to see a black home and claims that they “must live like we live.” She later generalizes African-Americans by praising that they “have so much emotion.” Although she does not realize it, Mary’s stereotypical view of blacks stems as a form of just what she is trying to combat with Jan-racism. Instead of making Bigger feel equal, she does the opposite, by making him feel more aware of “his black skin.” As a result, Bigger develops a sense of mild contempt, along with fear and confusion, towards Mary and Jan.
Although Mary Dalton’s character only briefly appears in the story, she plays a vital role. Her political affiliation with the Communists provides an outlet for escape for Bigger Thomas. Her murder also eternally changes Bigger’s life, and now he is constantly burdened with his crime. However, this provides him with a sense of satisfaction, and he now feels his life has purpose. Bigger’s character transitions from feeling as if his life as an African-American is “just like living in jail” to now having the responsibility as well as the thrill of dodging the consequences of his committed atrocity. In addition, Mary Dalton’s character also provides a focal point for comparison to Bigger. Mary is a rebel who goes against her parents’ wishes by dating a Communist and supporting their cause. However, she feels as if there is little hope in the success of this “revolution” and expresses that she feels “helpless and useless. On the other hand, Bigger rebels against society, and its racial standards. He also feels as if he has no hope as an African-American. Their nonconformist and hopeless personalities eventually clash and yields Mary’s death as a result, emphasizing her effect on Bigger, the main character.
In conclusion, the incorporation of Mary Dalton’s character in Richard Wrights, “Native Son,” is essential. Mary’s role in the novel is essential to the development of Bigger Thomas’s character. Her short-comings also shed light upon the difficulty of overcoming racial obstacles in the 1930’s. Although she desperately wanted to help African-Americans, she was simply not educated enough about issues regarding their race and their positions among society. Through Mary Dalton’s character, Richard Wright demonstrates that even if one intends to do well, their attempts are futile where ignorance exists.
More often than not, an author’s personal life translates into their stories. Whether it is done subconsciously or on purpose, their experiences paint a more colorful, vivid picture, and thus convey a stronger message to the reader. Perhaps, Mary Shelley’s own troubled family experience translates into her novel, Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus. Parenthood, or rather the absence, irresponsibility, and failure of parents, seems to be a constant theme presented in Frankenstein. Although examples of failed parenting can be seen within various relationships throughout the novel, the most interesting illustration of parenthood is seen of the main character, Victor Frankenstein, as he plays the roles of both father and son.
Get original essayThe story may be told in the perspective of a man who creates a monstrous creature, inevitably fathering it; but in actuality, the monster is not his creation, but he himself. This monstrous tale is not about how Victor becomes a victim of his own creation. Rather, his failure as a father to parent the creature he brought to life, ultimately enabling this creature to take part in society. Shelley suggests that Frankenstein is the true monster for the inhumane acts he commits against his creation, and the lack of compassion Frankenstein shows him as his father. In addition to Frankenstein’s role as a father, his role as a son is also explored as he experienced a childhood lacking in parental figures too. This suggests that there may be some correlation between Frankenstein’s upbringing, and how it affects his ability to be a parent, thus causing a chain reaction. Through the relationships between the explorer Robert Walton and his sister Margaret Saville, Frankenstein and his parents, and Frankenstein and his creation, Shelley’s message of the importance of parenting and the consequences that come with improper upbringing is outlined through these varying relationships.
With the novel beginning with letters from Walton to Saville, the absence of parents leaves Walton lacking a clear sense of purpose, continually seeking his sisters blessing, and longing for a true friend. Walton’s letters to his sister clearly serves as the outer narrative framework of the novel, used to provide context on the main narrative, and foreshadow various themes in the novel, one of which is parenthood. Although the novel suggests that his father has passed, it is unclear who or where Walton’s mother is, leaving the role of both parents vacant, yet partially filled by Saville.
In his letters to Saville, Walton cannot seem to conceal his excitement for his exploration adventures. He claims that “this expedition has been a favourite dream of [his] early years” (52). Walton further explains that his “education was neglected” (52), only to discover later on that “… [his] father’s dying injunction had forbidden [his] uncles to allow [him] to embark in a sea-faring life” (52). Although his dying father is a fairly reasonable reason for postponing his lifelong dream to be at sea, he was left clueless as to why he was unable to explore the world for the better part of his younger years, and his dream was nonetheless hindered. For a while, Walton was lost and lacked a sense of purpose, only to rediscover his passion for the sea in his later years. Furthermore, it is still unclear what his purpose is, other than the fact that he pursues his dream of exploration.
Moreover, Walton seems to be seeking this guidance from his sister Saville. Without parents, his letters suggest that Saville had filled that void as the nurturing motherly figure. In Walton’s first letter to Saville, he states “You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings … my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare, and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking”(51). Saville’s disapproval of Walton’s expedition is apparent as Walton suggests that she had regarded it with “evil forebodings” and that she would “rejoice” to hear he is safe and sound. He emphasizes that his very “first task” was to ensure Saville knew he was safe and sound, making it his first priority to reassure his “dear” sister of his successes so far. As his guardian, Walton also constantly seeks guidance and blessing from Saville. In one of the many letters he sent her, he states, “And now, dear Margaret, do I not deserve to accomplish some great purpose.” (53). Through the consistent mention of the hardship he endured growing up, Walton attempts to justify his current endeavors to redeem himself, and convince his sister he is doing the right thing. However it is evident that she is returning very little, if at all, correspondence in response to his letters. At one point, Walton exclaims, “Oh, that some encouraging voice would answer in the affirmative!” (53). The lack of correspondence suggests that Saville is yet another parental figure in Walton’s life who cannot be that parent he so desires. His desperate cry for an “encouraging voice” from his sister appears to not only be a cry for attention but also to show Saville his success and receive the validation he longs for.
Due to the absence of his parents in his childhood - and as it seems that of Saville, he confesses to his sister that “I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy…” (54). The lack of compassion from his family appears to leave Walton lonely and in need of a more understanding friend. Due to parental neglect, it is evident Walton is unable to assimilate into society. His inability to find a meaningful friendship causes him to isolate himself.
The absence of Frankenstein’s mother and neglect from his father also causes Frankenstein to defy their wishes, ultimately leading to the series of unfortunate events that are bestowed upon his family and friends. With Victor’s early discovery of his interest in natural philosophy, his father carelessly glances at the book Frankenstein was studying and responds, “My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash” (68). Without so much as an explanation, this clear example of lack of parental guidance, and insensitivity towards his son’s desires leaves Frankenstein feeling bitter and spiteful. In reflection, Frankenstein states, “If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me … I should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside … it is even possible, that the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin” (68). By calling Agrippa’s principles “sad trash,” his father insults something Frankenstein found a deep interest in. If his father “had taken the pains to explain” why it was sad trash, Frankenstein believes he would have immediately moved on. However, he blames his father’s lack of parenting as one of a few reasons why it has “led to [his] ruin.” Although this deliberate act of defiance would naturally seem like an act of hatred towards his father, it does not suit Frankenstein’s case at all as he loved his father. Nevertheless, Frankenstein continues to learn about this outdated science to prove his father otherwise. Blinded by his desire to show his father his success in this field of expertise, he jeopardizes everything without realizing the consequences, leading to disastrous outcomes.
Like Walton, Frankenstein has a difficult time assimilating into society. His obsession with creating his creature causes Frankenstein to isolate himself from his closest friend and his family. Ultimately, the creation of his creature causes Frankenstein to feel even more isolated as he feels guilty for the death of his little brother William and the wrongful conviction of William’s babysitter Justin Moritz. Due to his guilt, Frankenstein states that “[He] was a wretch, and none ever conceived of the misery that [he] then endured” (110). The unfortunate fates of those around him are the direct result of his inability to properly bring his creature into society. Frankenstein feels responsible for these disastrous series of events, calling himself a “wretch” because he did not bother to give the creature moral guidance. In turn, Frankenstein’s inability to be a capable father stems from his father’s inability to properly raise him. Frankenstein’s improper upbringing not only affects him as an adult but also his ability to be a father himself.
Frankenstein’s irresponsibility as a parent causes the creature to isolate himself from society and become the dangerous and revengeful creature Frankenstein had prejudiced him to be. In the very first instance the creature and Frankenstein interact, the creature confronts Frankenstein as he states, “‘… you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature…” (118). By rejecting his creation, Frankenstein abandons his responsibility as the father of this creature. Just like children are born into this world, this creature was brought into this world without any knowledge of how it functions. By following the example of a parent, a child can properly assimilate into society. Despite the creature’s outer appearance, he was born with good intentions like any other human being. It is through a person’s upbringing that determines if they learn to be good or bad people. In the creature’s case, the absence of a loving and caring protector, and the “detest and spurn” his creator felt towards him caused the creature to become a monstrous animal. When he could not find solace with his creator, the creature looked towards other human beings for compassion. After secretly watching over a family for months, the creature’s courage to approach this family due to the strong attachment he felt with them only caused more heartache. He explains to the blind father of the family, “’I am an unfortunate and deserted creature; I look around, and I have no relation or friend upon earth…I am an outcast in the world for ever’” (147). In his desperate attempt to receive acceptance from this family, his sympathetic tone that appeals to the blind father, was only to be met with tragedy when the truth of his appearance is discovered and he really becomes “an outcast in the world for ever.” Due to the creature’s improper upbringing, much like Frankenstein’s, isolation became his fate and revenge became his outlet.
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Get custom essayBy failing to be a compassionate parental figure, Saville leaves Walton feeling alone and lost, Frankenstein’s father leads Frankenstein to defy him, and Frankenstein makes it impossible for the creature to receive compassion within society. These various child-parent relationships enlighten the audience to the effect poor parenting has on society. Shelley’s portrayal of parent-child relationships throughout the novel raises the question of whether or not the tragedies in the novel could have been avoided with proper parenting, and if the parents are ultimately to blame for the chain of unfortunate events that occur in Frankenstein. Shelley suggests that the fate of a human being lies in the hands of parental figures that hold the responsibility of morally guiding children in the right direction. A parent should raise a child with compassion to ensure they have a proper upbringing.
Ernest Hemingway, the poster child of modernism’s lost generation, frequently tackles masculinity and manhood in the subjects of his novels, using characters that reflect parts of himself and the other men of this wasted generation to explore the psychosocial impacts of war and other struggles on men. The Sun Also Rises is no exception to the rule, with some scholars arguing that the “question of gender constitutes the basis of the story,” putting the importance of the masculine archetype into focus (Elliot 77). There are innumerable references to masculinity which occupy a position in stark contrast to the insecurities that most of the male characters have. Beyond the insights that Hemingway gives the reader into the thoughts and fears of these men, the reader can also glimpse into the author's focus on masculinity in his descriptive style, and his choice of subjects. Hemingway appears fascinated, and perhaps disturbed by the masculinity and masculine insecurities that have so permeated his novel. What’s more, he frames masculinity through culture, which helps to establish how society is implicated in masculinity through gender performance.
Get original essayEarly on in the novel, Hemingway uses Jake as a vehicle to introduce the unrealistic and unattainable standards that society has established for masculinity. “Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bull-fighters” (18). As Robert Cohn attempts to convince Jake to embark on a South American adventure and airs concerns that he feels that his life is passing him by, Jake makes this succinct remark that is rich in its implications regarding masculinity. The topic of bullfighting alone is one steeped in macho masculine metaphor. An event in which a man, dressed and idolized in extravagant uniform, exerts his force over a gargantuan bull in a battle to the death represents the social expectations for men to be dominant, controlling, violent individuals who are at the top of the food chain, gastronomically, socially, and sexually. This comment demonstrates Jake's negativity towards his own life, lacking in his ability to dominate sexually, and also suggests that if a man is not literally or otherwise grabbing a bull by its horns, he won't live a fulfilled life. Robert's response shows an interesting view to the contrary. “I'm not interested in bull-fighters. That's an abnormal life” (10). Here, Robert is calling out this reflection of masculine expectations as warped, suggesting that the idolization of the bull-fighter and what he culturally and socially represents is not healthy.
The introduction of Robert as a character gives the reader a look at how gender derived inferiority is at play in the novel. First, the discussion of boxing and the way in which Cohn used it to counter the insecurities that he felt is the first coupling of masculinity with violence in the novel. He was made to feel inferior as a Jewish student at Princeton and resorts to violence as a defense. Next, he is shown to be inferior to Frances, his fiancee. “I watched him walk back to the café holding his paper. I rather liked him and evidently she led him quite a life” (7). This comment, from Jake's point of view, suggests that Robert is incapable of leading Frances in life, that she is in control of the relationship. Robert appears to be aware of this inferiority as his realization that “he had not been everything to his first wife” is described in Chapter 2 (8). The inability to lead in romantic relationships is an issue that is repeatedly addressed throughout the novel, for many male characters. Jake cannot get Brett to commit to him because of his impotence and Mike cannot keep Brett from exploring other sexual relationships. While this takes an implied anti-feminist stance towards the submissive role of women in relationships, it does help highlight how each of these men feel inadequate in their masculinity.
Jake, our story's narrator, is a dysfunctional product of socially-defined gender expectations. His self awareness and homophobia are highlighted early on in the novel. “Somehow they always made me angry. I know they are supposed to be amusing, and you should be tolerant, but I wanted to swing on one, any one, anything to shatter that superior, simpering composure” (20). In this statement, the reader is exposed to Jake's homophobia and tendency to resort to violence while revealing society's attitude towards homosexuality. This idea that homosexuals should be seen as funny and put up with is disgusting and intolerant, but Jake cannot even bring himself to think that kindly of them. The fact that he perceives them to be composing themselves in an affected, superior fashion seems to indicate a self awareness and inferiority that Jake may feel, due to his impotence.
Scholar Ira Elliott illuminates this instance, “Jake's attitude toward the homosexuals—the way he degrades them and casts them as his rivals,” reveals, “the extent to which sexual categories and gender roles are cultural constructions” (78). He continues to explain that gender – not to be confused with biological sex – expressions of any kind are effectively performance art installments, with an individual mirroring the constructed views of what is masculine and what is feminine in their behavior. There is neither a cranial implant nor a gland sending messages that define the male or female, society sets those parameters. Elliott argues that we conform to expressions of socialized gender and perform and behave around those gender structures. He supports this contention by examining the ways in which Jake gathers his information in the encounter with the homosexuals. Jake deduces their sexual orientation based on the gestures and styles of the men. These behaviors and traits, such as clothing or hairstyle, are set against societal definitions of gender and sexuality. Mr. Barnes assumes their sexual preference based strictly on their behavior and appearance, which does seem to indicate that gender is a highly socialized cultural construct (Elliott 78). Operating within these understandings, Jake’s disgust likely stems from the idea that within this binary social structure of gender, there is no acceptable feminized male. Therefore, he perceives these men to be performing as female, which would cause some cognitive dissonance on Jake’s part and results in his negative feelings towards them.
James A. Puckett echoes the idea of gender performance being a social and cultural one and specifically references The Sun Also Rises. “Masculinity for Hemingway’s characters is under continuous negotiation and necessarily relies upon the judgment of others, holding no significance outside of a social context” (126). He supports this claim by analyzing the character Francis Macaomber, who struggles with cowardliness and fear and the way he is judged by his public audience – namely his wife – through societal lenses of appropriate and acceptable masculinity.
When Jake recounts his recovery in the Italian hospital in the war, he is reminded of the colonel who visited him. “I was all bandaged up. But they had told him about it. Then he made that wonderful speech: 'You, a foreigner, an Englishman' (any foreigner was an Englishman) 'have given more than your life'” (31). In claiming that Jake’s erectile dysfunction is worse than death, the colonel speaks on behalf of a gendered community in which the ability to perform sexually has more social value than life or service. This is further demonstrative of the twisted priorities of the gendered social expectations for men. It’s important to note that the characters responsible for perpetuating these expectations are not just the men, but the women as well. Brett reinforces these warped values by refusing a commitment to Jake on account of his impotence.
Jake’s very impotence is a crucial facet in interpreting gender in The Sun Also Rises. It seems that if Hemingway truly adopted the hyper-masculinized expectations of society, that he would not have made his protagonist, Jake, impotent. That quality would not be one that he would want his readers to positively associate with the novel or himself, by extension. It begs readers to question that deliberate choice and its significance to the plot. New Jersey City University English professor David Blackmore offers this suggestion, “I would posit that Jake’s emasculation functions as a metaphor for the whole complex of his anxieties about masculinity and sexuality” (53). This argument seems perfectly reasonable and likely, given the frequency with which phallic imagery is met with anxiety from Jake. Blackmore focuses more closely on the nature of Jake’s impotence, pointing out that Hemingway cited Jake’s condition in a 1951 letter, ““Jake has lost his penis but not his testicles or spermatic cord – and therefore not his sexual desire” (66). Had Hemingway opted for the reversal of that, it would significantly change the interpretation of Jake and his situation. Blackmore explains, “if desire rather than behavior defines sexual identity, Jake need not perform heterosexually in order to be a heterosexual” (54). This idea of desire trumping performance in some way conflicts with the idea that Hemingway is playing with gender as performance. However, desire’s importance in modernist literature makes Blackmore’s case an interesting and important perspective that it would be unwise to dismiss.
Perhaps what first appears to be conflict between the ideas of sexual desire and gender identity that is observed in Jake’s character is actually another way in which Hemingway is fighting the confines of gender performance brought on by culture’s binary gender definitions. By choosing to juxtapose Jake’s disability with his heterosexual desire, the author discredits and dissolves the power of gender performance and the norms surrounding it.
Modernist scholar Greg Forter has his own view on male social power and male sexuality. Hemingway’s decision to divorce Jake and his physical manhood show how difficult it was for men in modernism to identify as men. Forter continues, “the wound cuts them off from the source of their own undoubted virility – a source that, in our cultural imaginary, is the root of male social power as well” (26). Once again, there is a suggestion that culture has dictated meaningless criteria for what constitutes masculinity and masculine power. However, Forter poses a fairly novel claim, stating that there is a duality to the impact of Jake’s affliction. Not only does the veteran lose the phallic, dominating power of the masculine male, but he also loses the “genteel, sentimental, and implicitly feminine masculinity,” which leaves him in a psycho-sexual limbo (26). When gender is forced into a male-female system in which there is a binary within each category – male masculinity and female masculinity – there is an empty space lying on a spectrum not represented by the binary system. Jake lies, if readers are to accept Forter’s argument, in that zone, which Hemingway seems to be aware of. Even Jake is arguably aware enough of his habitation in this no-man's land, and his feeling out of place reveals itself in the implicit anxieties regarding masculinity that he displays throughout the novel.
In Paris, Jake walks past the statue of Marshal Ney, who appears to be a painful reminder of Jake's impotence and associated lack of power. “He looked very fine, Marshal Ney in his top-boots, gesturing with his sword among the green new horse-chestnut leaves” (29) The pointing and directing actions and the sword itself speak to the phallic nature of the statue. The new green growth of the leaves suggests propagation, a reproductive act for which Jake is ill-equipped. It is important to note that this is an important figure of sexual masculinity, combined with a weapon. Hemingway more than once associates male sex imagery with control and violence or weaponry.
At the novel's close, the reader sees the final interaction between Brett and Jake in the taxi in what is, again, filled with phallic imagery. “Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me” (247). The policeman is “mounted,” likely an intentional choice of words which has sexual connotations. Mounting an animal suggests a sexual dominance and power, which Jake lacks. The policeman and his baton, respectively representative of power and violence and male genitalia, is in further contrast to Jake's impotence. They are pressed together, but only as the result of the control and power exerted by this policeman, not in reaction to Jake's actions. The officer’s role, one of – at the time – masculine power and physical control, could be interpreted as another example of how gender performance manifests itself within a culture. Just as culture has assigned characteristics to gender which we mirror within society, those gender assignments and associated performances have historically extended themselves to the workplace, with different gendered performances being expected of certain professions, such as police work or military service, the latter being a role consistently presented in Hemingway’s works.
Hemingway's own macho-presenting performance and his written fixation on violence and power could suggest that he may have looked unfavorably on men who didn't fit the traditional masculine gender mold. However, with an impotent protagonist, it's clear that he is more sympathetic to masculine insecurities that arise from the expectations that shape and fail the men in his stories. Furthermore, research suggests that Hemingway may have also viewed gender more complicatedly than one might assume, as he utilizes the social and cultural manifestations of gender to display and normalize male insecurities. In utilizing gender constructions and gender performance within this work, Hemingway is in a way putting the culture that designs these systems on trial, in a critique that does not align itself with the way Hemingway’s masculine persona and legacy have been continuously interpreted.
Works Cited
Blackmore, David. " ‘In New York It'd Mean I Was A...’ ": Masculinity Anxiety And Period Discourses Of Sexuality In "The Sun Also Rises." Hemingway Review, vol. 18, no. 1, 1998, pp. 49-67. Academic Search Premier, http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.csupueblo.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=0de95728-eee1-44a8-8b97-986627bbdaf4%40sessionmgr105&vid=19&hid=112. Accessed 22 November 2016.
Elliot, Ira. "Performance Art: Jake Barnes And 'Masculine' Signification In The Sun Also Rises." American Literature: A Journal Of Literary History, Criticism, And Bibliography, vol. 67, no. 1 1995, pp. 77-94. MLA International Bibliography, http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.csupueblo.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=22&sid=0de95728-eee1-44a8-8b97-986627bbdaf4%40sessionmgr105&hid=112. Accessed 22 November 2016.
Forter, Greg. "Melancholy Modernism: Gender And The Politics Of Mourning In The Sun Also Rises. (Articles)." The Hemingway Review, vol. 22, no. 1 2002. Literature Resource Center, http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.csupueblo.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=21&sid=0de95728-eee1-44a8-8b97-986627bbdaf4%40sessionmgr105&hid=112. Accessed 22 November 2016.
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Get custom essayPuckett, James A. "Sex Explains It All." Studies In American Naturalism, vol. 8, no.2, 2013, pp. 125-149. Academic Search Premier, http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.csupueblo.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=17&sid=0de95728-eee1-44a8-8b97-986627bbdaf4%40sessionmgr105&hid=112. Accessed 22 November 2016.
Boldly forthright and bitterly candid, Junot Diaz’s "Drown" forges a sense of community culture that propels the development of several of the work’s major themes, foremost among them the retention of historically accepted implications of masculinity. Whereas subjects such as dissecting the infamous coming of age narrative or examining the futility of the 'American Dream’ may appear more readily accessible or simple to grasp, this central, cultural, and intellectual complex of machismo proves to be the true agent that drives both these ideas and countless others explored by Diaz through his protagonist, Yunior.
Get original essayThe masculine insecurities that Yunior experiences can be anticipated as early as the opening lines of "Drown," with the dismissal of his former friend Beto on the basis of his homosexuality. However, this rejection is a complex one, as Yunior relates,
My mother tells me Beto's home, waits for me to say something, but I keep watching the TV. Only when she's in bed do I put on my jacket and swing through the neighborhood to see. He's a pato now but two years ago we were friends and he would walk into the apartment without knocking, his heavy voice rousing my mother from the Spanish of her room and drawing me up from the basement, a voice that crackled and made you think of uncles or grandfathers (Diaz 91).
Here, while Yunior’s spurning of Beto is apparent, his simultaneous reminiscence of times past with his friend reveal a great deal more on the subject of masculinity. Rather than merely stating that he and Beto were no longer on good terms, Yunior makes sure to highlight Beto’s homosexuality with the Spanish term, 'pato', a subtle act of desperation made in order to distance himself from the cultural taboo such an orientation entails. However, even in these opening lines of "Drown," Yunior begins to expose his genuine sentiments on the subject of masculinity. By emphasizing Beto’s dominance, his 'heavy voice' that roused his mother and drew him up from the basement, 'a voice that crackled and made you think of uncles and grandfathers', it becomes clear that Yunior is intrigued, if not obsessed, with the notion of machismo. Relating Beto to an uncle or grandfather figure, the respect and admiration Yunior has, or had, for his friend’s masculinity and confidence can be noted quite clearly. Conversely, Yunior’s decision to wait until his mother falls asleep before going to try and see Beto further reveals his desire to hide any relation to a man who may be criticized in terms of masculinity, an effort that ironically reveals the fragility of his own sexual confidence. Commenting on their past adventures together, Yunior explains,
We were raging then, crazy the way we stole, broke windows, the way we pissed on people's steps and then challenged them to come out and stop us (Diaz 92).
Emphasizing recklessness and abandon in multiple instances, Yunior attempts to showcase his and Beto’s facade of masculinity, as well as the bravado it culturally implies. And yet it is ultimately Yunior that displays the more sensitive nature between the himself and Beto, as upon being caught shoplifting he recalls,
I started to cry. Beto didn’t say a word, his face stretched out and gray, his hand squeezing mine, the bones in our fingers pressing together (Diaz 99).
While Beto, the pato, remains stoic in the face of prosecution, Yunior begins crying, shedding the stereotypical attributes of machismo. This irony, in conjunction with the powerful image of Yunior and Beto’s hands clenching together, further complicates the already multifaceted nature of Yunior’s sexuality, bringing into question his 'masculine' identity. In a scene that encapsulates the masculine sentiment of this Dominican-American enclave in New Jersey, Yunior’s friend Alex, in reference to a gay man,
… just puts his head out the window. Fuck you! he shouts and then settles back in his seat, laughing. That’s original, I say (Diaz 103).
Aside from merely highlighting the cruel attitude toward those with stereotypically deviant sexualities, this incident also shows that Yunior isn’t completely spiteful or even apathetic towards homosexuals, seeming to almost come to their defense when abused by Alex. Therefore, through a multitude of subtle yet clear innuendos, Yunior’s latently complex and delicate masculinity reveals itself to be infinitely more fragile than he attempts to make it appear.
In this case study of masculinity, arguably the most powerful formative influence on Yunior, both sexually and emotionally, is his mother. The masculine burden Yunior feels compelled to carry with respect to his mother can be traced to their abandonment by his father, as described by his happening upon his parents talking:
She’s talking to my father, something she knows I disapprove of. He's in Florida now, a sad guy who calls her and begs for money. He swears that if she moves down there he'll leave the woman he's living with. These are lies, I've told her, but she still calls him. His words coil inside of her, wrecking her sleep for days (Diaz 100).
Embittered by his father’s abandonment, Yunior loses all respect for the man, calling him a 'sad guy' and a liar. More significantly than his personal attitude towards his father, however, is Yunior’s concern for the effects of his father’s words on his mother. The vivid imagery of his father’s destructive effects on his mother is a detail that relates the compassion and sensitivity of Yunior, as well as his outstanding quality of loyalty. When his father leaves, Yunior feels obliged to contribute to household income and care for his mother, two stereotypically masculine qualities. Even going so far as to entertain his mother, Yunior reflects,
Saturdays she asks me to take her to the mall. As a son I feel I owe her that much… Before we head out she drags us through the apartment to make sure the windows are locked… Putting my hand on the latch is not enough-she wants to hear it rattle (Diaz 96).
Yunior’s bond with his mother is one that is only emboldened by the departure of his father, and the symbolic locking of the windows that occurs both here and at the end of the work symbolizes his devotion and his mother’s insecurity. Just as she wants to hear the locks rattle to make sure they are secure, Yunior’s mother makes sure to hold on to and hold back her son. Stepping in to fill the hole his father left behind at such a young age is a responsibility that advanced Yunior’s notions of the masculine at an alarmingly early time in life, while simultaneously corrupting his views of acceptance in an effort to preserve the qualities that he believes to support his mother. This internal struggle of self identity, this divide between the 'masculine' and the otherwise, boils over when Yunior relates,
My mother sensed that something was wrong and pestered me about it, but I told her to leave me the fuck alone, and my pops, who was home on a visit, stirred himself from the couch to slap me down. Mostly I stayed in the basement, terrified that I would end up abnormal, a fucking pato, but he was my best friend and back then that mattered to me more than anything (Diaz 104).
After Beto’s first sexual advance, Yunior’s carefully designed facade of masculinity seems to crumble around him, triggered subsequently by his mother. When asked what is bothering him, Yunior snaps back with an explicative, unable to contain the terror he feels in that moment. His mother, the reason for his machismo, the inspiration for the masculine identity he has constructed, is questioning him on an incident he can tell her nothing about; an incident that would be damning in the harsh cultural enclave they live in. This image of Yunior staying in the basement, afraid of 'becoming' homosexual, is therefore a symbol of his reluctance to come to terms with his sexuality, as well as one that represents the pressure he faces to maintain the illusion of masculinity in a society that denounces any inkling of the otherwise.
The masculine tragedy of "Drown" can be encapsulated by Yunior’s commentary of a scene he watches on television with his mother:
The actors throw themselves around, passionate, but their words are plain and deliberate. It’s hard to imagine anybody going through life this way (Diaz 107).
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Yunior ironically goes through his life in the exact opposite way, one that is equally painful to watch. Filled with passion and emotion, Yunior is unable to express it, bottling feelings inside himself in order to comply with the preconceived cultural notions of masculinity surrounding him. Initially a spectator of those around him 'drowning,' such as his mother and Beto, Yunior is eventually overwhelmed himself, closing the window on both his literal and emotional potential, a victim to suffocation at the hands of cultural expectations.
Many of Chekov’s characters in The Seagull resolve to hopelessly love people who do not love them. This tendency presents a clear flaw that Chekov makes fun of, as these fixations inevitably lead to nothing. The hopeless romantics do not end up finding each other and rather remain as they were, or in Constantine’s case, lost for good. How these characters got to their points of no return differs in a combination of upbringings and personal characteristics. Masha for instance, who is used for dark comic relief throughout the play, displays striking similarities in her faults to those of her mother. While her depressing cynicism can easily be taken for granted, there is an undeniable parallel between Polina’s pining affection toward Dr. Dorn and Masha’s more dramatic adoration for Constantine. Masha’s unreciprocated love for Constantine and her inability to take in pleasures from life stem from an unconscious tendency to learn from her mother.
Get original essayPolina’s loveless marriage provides more than just an example for Masha to marry Simon; it spawns the idea of following false hope and leads Masha to absorb her life in someone who will give her nothing. It is important to understand that Chekov does not create a perfect parallel, giving each character an individual distinction as means of making them more human and therefore relatable. Masha’s love for Constantine has become an obsession. Polina’s feelings for Dr. Dorn, on the other hand, are displayed more as a want rather than a need. She longs to be with him of course, but understands that she has committed herself to Ilya. Nonetheless, Masha’s decision to marry and remain lovesick for another man is a learned predisposition from her mother. Polina is embarrassed by her husband’s actions and his firm control over the use of his horses, yet remains committed to him as if her feelings of displeasure were not important in regards of their marriage. While Polina knows that she will stay with Ilya, she still makes advances toward Dr. Dorn who continually turns her down. Like any daughter, Masha looks to her mother for guidance and is likely to mimic her characteristics. As a result, Masha sees no wrong in entering a loveless marriage with Simon on her own accord while actively pursuing her actual heart's desires. Polina feels Masha’s pain and must realize at some point the pointlessness of marrying out of spite instead of love, but brings up Masha to believe that it is the only way they can live life. Masha feels like she “knows not whence she comes or why she lives” because adoring Constantine has not given her the purpose of living that she thought she would find, but she does not need to feel this way. Her mother has taught her, whether consciously or unconsciously, to follow false hope.
Instead of admitting that her pursuance for Dr. Dorn is causing her to neglect her daughter’s best interest, Polina incites Masha to follow Constantine, which introduces her to the idea of abandonment and instills her with a sense of emptiness. Polina watches her daughter make Constantine’s bed and lay down her life for him. However, instead of helping Masha move on she turns to Constantine and asks him to at least glance at her daughter. She knows Constantine’s feelings will never change but asks him to continue to lead her own daughter down an empty path. Her duty as a mother is to protect her child and provide her with her best chance at happiness. However, she abandons this role because it is easier to ignore it and chase after her own desires, namely Dr. Dorn, who does not seem to take any particular interest in her. Hypocritically, she remains committed to Ilya on paper, but exhibits great jealousy when someone as harmless as Nina inadvertently hands Dr. Dorn flowers. Although she does not abandon her role as a wife during the play, she would have left or even started an affair had Dr. Dorn agreed to love her. Granted, Polina does not leave her husband, but she does influence Masha to leave Simon by pushing her towards a man who already loves someone else. Masha does not need to mimic her mother’s flirtations with Dr. Dorn entirely because she displays her own distinction. She takes her love for Constantine a step further, and abandons her role as a mother and wife for days to simply exist in his presence. Her neglect may be caused by a poor mindset, but she continues to follow an empty idea, projected to her by her mother.
Polina’s demeaning attitude toward Simon projects the idea that he does not need appreciation, which causes Masha’s respect for Simon to fade throughout the play. Although Simon has sacrificed a lot for Masha, Polina still believes that Masha would be better off with Constantine, if only he would notice her. Although Ilya embarrasses her when he rejects Simon’s request to use his horses, Polina makes no conscious effort to help Simon’s case. Similarly, Masha becomes frustrated with Simon for even asking her father for horses when there are other options. Even Polina’s seemingly insignificant reactions to Simon, such as her reluctance to allow Simon to kiss her hand, have been imprinted on Masha. Chekov introduces the play with Simon and Masha acting almost like old friends as they discuss recent events. However, Polina causes Masha’s regard toward Simon to decline, as her causal discussions with him in the start of the play turn into almost hateful dialogues toward the end. It is one thing for Masha to tell a man politely that she does not love him, and another to ignore his pleas of returning home to their child who has not seen his mother for four days. Thus, by accepting her mother’s manners in regards to her husband, Masha finds herself not simply unable to return Simon’s love, but even to regard him as a character.
Masha’s false hope, sense of emptiness, and animosity towards Simon are primarily consequences of Polina’s poor example as a parent. A mother nurtures and instinctively imposes her characteristics and habits onto her child. Regardless, it is the child’s right to choose which conventions to take on and how drastically to follow them. Polina exhibits questionable behavior, which can add to the dark comic relief or also convey a specific theme. But her behavior remains within the lines of reason, and she remains loyal to her husband and does not use her marriage as an irrational hope for change. In this sense Masha becomes a more dramatic reflection of Polina, taking in her mother’s advice and disposition a forlorn step further.
Edgar Allen Poe created an interesting paradigm surrounding his theory on cosmic principle. He sees the universe as God's artistic creation dispersed among humankind. Artists, namely poets, bring together the universe by breaking free of their physical world and its correlating corruption and materialism. To do this, poets must use their imagination and delve deep into their minds to find the universe's original harmony. Poe's theory goes on to describe mankind's dualistic nature, where man is both spiritual and rational. The spiritual side draws on imagination, emotion, and creativity while the rational side remains terrestrial and distant from cosmic unity. Ultimately, poets can regain unity with the universe only through death. In Poe's "The Masque of Red Death," Prince Prospero attempts to rid himself of the Red Death by retreating into his mind. Prospero represents the spiritualistic side of the poet, and Red Death represents the earthbound rationality of life.
Get original essayProspero represents the spiritual mind of his character. Poe describes the spiritual poet as someone who seeks to rid himself of his materialistic reality by "looking inward to the depths of his mind" (Poe's Cosmology). Additionally, Prospero attempts to "free himself from time, reason, [and] the physical world" (Poe's Cosmology). The dualistic poet creates his own reality - free of unpredictability, danger, or death - and utilizes his imagination, creativity, and emotions to become closer to the "harmony of the universe" (Poe's Cosmology). In "The Masque of Red Death," Red Death represents the experiences of life, and does so by creating a "voluptuous scene" (Poe 62). To escape the Red Death plague, Prospero withdraws "to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys" and seals himself in with "gates of iron" (Poe 62). Prospero's retreat is "bold and fiery" and filled with "much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, [and] much of the bizarre" (Poe 64). Prospero reconstructs a world within the abbey, where a "multitude of dreams...writhe(d) in and about," floating around like the "wild music of the orchestra" (Poe 64). Prospero isolates himself into a world of emotion and imagery to escape his own profane physical surroundings, and thus Prospero creates an imaginary world of phantasmagoric surroundings inside the walls of the abbey. According to the concept of dualism, a poet surrounds himself with his own creativity and beauty to escape harsher reality. Likewise, Prospero surrounds himself with beautiful scenes and bizarre dreams in order to both escape the ugly reality of life and bar his physicality - represented by Red Death - from his mind.
Just as Prospero represents the spiritual side of the dualistic poet, Red Death represents the earthbound rationality of life. Poe describes this side of the dualistic poet as possessing "rational knowledge" and characterizes it as "sick, dark, and insensitive" (Poe's Cosmology). This rational side can be seen as a series of inevitable constants: despair, pain, materialism, and death. In "The Masque of Red Death," the fatal "Red Death" rampages Prospero's country and infects people with "sharp pains...profuse bleeding... [and] seizure" (Poe 62). Prospero attempts to shut the plague out of his life, but at his grand party, the "presence of a masked figure" appears; "Neither wit or propriety exist(ed)" in this figure, dressed "in the habiliments of the grave" (Poe 65). Red Death lacks any "tangible form" and comes "like a thief in the night" for those who "shut him out" (Poe 66, 62). Prospero tries to attack Red Death, but he dies before he can even lay a hand on the impostor. Red Death - comprised of despair, pain, and death - symbolizes the rational side of Prospero as a dualistic poet. Furthermore, if Prospero is trying to escape the rational aspects of life, then he is trying essentially to escape life itself. Thus, Red Death also represents life in its entirety and as such, cannot be altogether eliminated or ignored. It is then ironic that Prospero causes his own downfall to death by trying to separate his mind from life.
According to Poe's theory of dualism, Prospero represents the spiritualistic side of the poet, and Red Death represents the earthbound rationality of life. Poe dealt with unhappiness in his own life when the only women he ever loved died young. Conversely, Prospero deals with the inevitability of death in "The Masque of Red Death" by trying to run away from it. By attempting to separate his spiritual side from his rational side, Prospero's persona dies and only then becomes unified with the universe.
Rudyard Kipling begins The Man Who Would Be King by quoting a phrase commonly associated with the Masonic Order; the story itself contains many Masonic references including the degrees, the forms of recognition, the overall Lodge hierarchy, and certain aspects of the initiatory process. But Freemasonry, which is sometimes known as the Craft, consists of not just the formal elements but also the shared knowledge, culture, and traditions observed by all Masons. These aspects of Masonic subculture, and the fact that the narrator and the two main characters are Freemasons, are vital to the plot of the story. This essay will provide background information for the Masonic terminology and imagery used in The Man Who Would Be King so as to provide sufficient context to allow a reader of the novella to understand the subtext. Yet the essay does not purport to probe any of the deeper meanings of Masonic symbols, to endorse or condemn Freemasonry, or to reveal information restricted to initiates. Nor does it provide any information about the Craft beyond what is necessary to understand Kipling’s story.
Get original essayIn The Man Who Would Be King, the two main characters Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnahan travel to Kafiristan, a fictionalized version of a part of northeastern Afghanistan once known by that name, and presently called Nuristan. Their goal is to make themselves kings of that territory. One of the ways they do that is by passing themselves off as having mystical powers in addition to their firearms. They find evidence that Freemasonry has been introduced to the local men in the distant past, but only up to the Second Degree. It has since fallen out of regular use and mutated into an almost cult-like practice. Dan and Peachey impress the local men with their knowledge of Masonry by displaying knowledge that, in Kafiristan, is considered to be not just specific to a higher degree, but proof that they are actual gods. Instead of correcting the misunderstanding, Dan and Peachey willingly use the Craft to consolidate their power, until one day Dan takes his arrogance too far and is revealed to be just a mortal man. The Kafirs immediately rebel, and only Peachey returns alive to tell the tale. To a person not familiar with Masonic culture or traditions, Kipling’s story is a swashbuckling adventure novel. However, from a Masonic perspective, it is a morality tale with a very predictable denouement.
The Masonic Order is an all-male fraternal organization established in the early 18th century but based on traditions from even older secret societies that may possibly include medieval trade guilds and the Knights Templar. In its present form, Masonry has a tiered initiation system wherein men pass through three degrees one at a time, with each degree of conferring additional knowledge and responsibility. A man may request admission, but he must be sponsored by a reputable Mason of the Lodge to which he seeks admission, so that the members of the Lodge may vote on whether to accept him. If he is accepted, his sponsor is held partially accountable for his future conduct, and he is initiated into the First Degree by means of a special ritual. The First Degree is followed by the Second or Fellow Craft Degree ritual, at which point he may be “raised” to the Third or Master Mason Degree, which is also a separate ritual.
There are a few ways by which one Mason can recognize another of his own degree or lower. These forms of recognition are secret, and one of the oaths a Freemason takes during each degree ceremony is to never reveal them to outsiders. They are given out during the degree ceremony and must be memorized, and before any Mason is allowed to see or hear any activity related to a specific degree he must prove himself by using these means of recognition. Kipling’s story mentions two forms of recognition: the degree grips, and the degree words.
Grips can be considered as secret handshakes. They are discreet enough to be done in public between two Masons who will appear to simply be shaking hands. But they are unique enough to not occur by accident, and each grip also has a response so that the man giving the Grip can determine whether the other is responding correctly. Each degree has a unique grip. When Peachey shakes hands with Billy Fish and receives the Grip, he recognizes Billy as a Mason of at least the First Degree. Peachey tries the Fellow Craft grip and Billy responds correctly, proving himself to be a Mason of at least the Second Degree. But when Peachey tries the Master Grip of the Third Degree, he gets no response. Accordingly, Peachey identifies Billy as potentially being a Fellow Craft Mason. So he asks of Dan: “does he know the Word?”
The Word Peachey is asking about is another form of recognition. Each degree has a unique word that, like the Grip, is secret. These words are not language specific, but common throughout the world to all Masons of that degree. Dan asserts that Billy knows the Words of the First and Second Degrees, as do all the priests. Dan has seen “marks” or symbols carved on the some rocks that correspond to some symbols associated with First and Second Degree Masons, and tells Peachey that the local chiefs and priests can conduct a Fellow Craft Lodge ceremony “in a way that’s very like ours.”
The phrase “in a way that’s very like ours” is a sign that Dan and Peachey are in trouble. They have stumbled upon people who appear to be Freemasons and who have some of the forms of recognition, but who are not actually part of a regular or recognized Lodge. Although they know and observe the superficial parts of Masonry, they are not necessarily aware of the significance of the words, symbols, and rituals they use. Nor are they necessarily bound by the same oaths or obligations as Peachey and Dan. Indeed, Masonry the way it is practiced in Kafiristan operates more like a religious cult. To the local “Masons”, the fact Dan and Peachey possess knowledge of the Third Degree is not evidence that they have advanced farther in the Craft (as it would be in any regular lodge), but that they are gods. Since Dan has been trying to pass himself and Peachey off as gods since they entered Kafiristan in order to get the local people to submit to his rulership, the coincidence appears to be a lucky break. In reality it is a pitfall.
The Masonic Order is a global body with members all over the world, but it has a somewhat hierarchical structure. The core unit of organization is the “Lodge”: a collection of Masons who meet in a specific location, frequently a hall or building dedicated to the purpose. Lodges are run by men known as “officers” who perform specific administrative tasks that correspond roughly to those performed by the officers of a business corporation. Lodges in turn are governed by administrative organizations that Peachey Carnahan and Dan Dravot refer to as “Grand Lodge”. A Grand Lodge is an administrative body that enforces uniform standards among the various lodges throughout the region and grants or denies applications to open or close a Lodge. There is also a Mother Grand Lodge in England that regulates the Grand Lodges in each part of the world. This interconnection and correspondence between Lodges is very important, because recognition by a Grand Lodge confers legitimacy. There are groups of people who form “irregular” lodges that purport to be Masonic but that are not acknowledged or recognized by the other Lodges due to serious departure from the traditions and principles of Freemasonry. A “lodge” that is not recognized by a Grand Lodge or particularly the Mother Grand Lodge is very likely to have something seriously wrong with it. For this reason, Masons are required to not participate in Masonic activities with outsiders or with “irregular” Masons from a lodge that is not recognized. Yet this is exactly what Dan and Peachey do.
In Kipling’s fictionalized Kafiristan, Dan and Peachey find a collection of polytheistic men who have radically different beliefs and priorities than their apron-wearing English visitors. Their version of Freemasonry has mutated over the years into something more like a religious cult. They were not given their degrees by any regular, recognized lodge, and are therefore irregular Masons at best and outsiders at worst. Accordingly, when Dan and Peachey participate in Masonic rituals with them, they are engaging in a forbidden form of Masonic activity.
Dan identifies himself as a Grand-Master of the Craft and asserts that he will open a Lodge in the Third Degree, to raise the local chiefs and priests to the Third Degree in order to appropriate their authority and cement his own. Although a casual reader might suspect that Dan might have some authority beyond the Third Degree, the text shows he does not. Peachey asserts that neither he nor Dan has ever actually held office in a Lodge. This means that Dan’s claims of being a “Grand-Master”, or his introduction of himself and Peachey as “Past Grand-Masters” cannot possibly be true.
An “officer” is a man who has specific responsibilities within a Lodge, sometimes having been elected by the other members of the Lodge. He is given enough authority to fulfil those responsibilities. The most senior officer in a Lodge is the “Worshipful Master”, who is elected by the men in the Lodge. After his term of office expires, he becomes a “Past Master” and in some cases may join the regional Grand Lodge. The head of the Grand Lodge is the Grand-Master. The title “Past Grand-Master” exists in the York Rite, but is not relevant to ordinary Freemasonry. During Dan’s first Lodge ceremony Peachey takes the office of the “Senior Warden”, who is the Worshipful Master’s second-in-command. There are several other offices through in which a Mason is expected to serve before he is considered eligible to be a Senior Warden or Worshipful Master, and there are always more opportunities for service than there are men willing to serve. Since both Dan and Peachey can read but neither has ever held office in a lodge before, for the two of them to take the most senior possible roles is quite arrogant.
Peachey is aware of the extent to which he and Dan are overreaching. He asserts that opening a Lodge is “against all the law,” because he and Dan lack the necessary experience and do not have an appropriate “warrant” from any Grand Lodge. Dan, however, will not be denied. He commandeers the temple of Imbra, sets Peachey to work making it look like a Masonic ritual space. Black and white checkerboard tiles are a customary decoration, as are seats for particular officers and specially decorated aprons. The Master Mason symbol on Dan’s apron matches a hidden symbol under a large stone in the Temple of Imbra. The fact Dan knows and possesses the secret symbol causes the Kafir men to believe that he and Peachey are not men who have reached a higher level of advancement in the Craft, but gods. Since Daniel Dravot has been trying to pass himself off as a god since he entered Kafiristan, he takes advantage of their credulity to seize temporal power and expand his authority throughout the region.
The English adventurers give each of the Chiefs and priests English names, and do not bother to learn their real ones. Billy Fish, for example, is a big chief in the first valley Dan and Peachey conquer. But the fact Dan and Peachey are willing to raise Billy and the other chiefs and priests to the Third Degree without knowing their real names is ridiculous: almost as ridiculous as trying to lead a Lodge without being able to speak the local language. Masonic rituals are always conducted in the language of the members of the Lodge. After a couple months in the country, Dan understands some of the language but does not speak fluently. Peachey never learns to speak to the Kafirs at all. He does not have the communication skills to convey anything really important, such as the obligations of the Master Mason.
Masonic Lodge ceremonies, including Degree rituals, have a large number of words in them. There is a great deal of information that must be transferred to the man being initiated to the First Degree, passed to the Second Degree, or raised to the Third Degree. His obligations must be explained to him in the clearest possible terms. To conduct a plausible Degree ritual takes a lot of memorization and practice. Although Dan and Peachey have passed through the Third Degree and knows its symbols and forms of recognition, they are also out of practice. Peachey admits that he has to “fudge” the Ritual and make it up as he goes along despite the fact he is serving as Senior Warden (a name for a role within a Masonic ceremony). He and Dan get away with it chiefly because the local priests are even more badly out of practice than they are. But the overreach is almost ludicrous, especially when they fabricate a Third Degree ceremony which Peachey admits is “not in any way according to Ritual” simply to raise ten of the most important local chiefs and priests to the degree in order to consolidate their power base.
The Masonic Order is what is known as a fraternal order. Part of the obligations associated with Masonry include the duty to treat all other Masons as though they are one’s brothers, and to render reasonable help in time of need, should the recipient deserve it. This is one of the reasons Peachey, at the outset of the story, asks the narrator for a favor “for the sake of your mother as well as mine”. Peachey suspects that the narrator is a Mason, and that he therefore has a brotherly responsibility to him to at least pass on his message to Dan at the railway station. This the narrator does, however his brotherly responsibilities to Dan and Peachey do not extend to helping them blackmail the head of a neighboring state. Just as biological brothers do not necessarily help each other break the law or avoid consequences for bad behavior, a Freemason’s bonds of fraternity do not override his religious, civic, or military responsibilities. Masonic brothers are not obligated to aid each other in illegal activity: indeed, the very first line of the story contains the phrase “if he deserve it”. The narrator understands the principle: once he has performed the favor requested of him by delivering Peachey’s message to Dan, his responsibility to the travelers ends. At no point does he believe that two vagabond con artists (who happen to be Masons) deserve his cooperation or protection in the form of silence while they embark upon their extortion scheme. Indeed, his responsibilities of citizenship and basic decency compel him to send an advance warning so that Dan and Peachey are intercepted at the border. In doing this, the narrator is acting on one of the core Masonic principles, which is a respect for the law and authority in one’s own nation. Although Dan and Peachey expect the narrator to help with, or at least overlook their illegal shakedown scheme, the narrator feels no such obligation as a Mason.
Freemasons are not required to agree with each other or support one another blindly. Within the Lodge, the custom of pax templi, or “peace of the temple” is observed: all disputes, including legal battles and political differences, are left outside. Discussion of controversial issues, particularly religion and politics, is forbidden. Because Masons can be found throughout the world, including in countries where Lodges cannot formally exist due to government suppression, it is not unusual for them to be on opposite sides in a war. Outside the Lodge, Masons are expected to uphold the laws and military responsibilities of their country, which may include knowingly fighting or killing another Mason in battle should he be on the enemy side. Although Masonic culture includes a sense of obligation to help people who are in need of aid including other Masons, should they deserve it, the duty to render aid is always superseded by a man’s greater duties such as the ones to his family, his nation, or his God. This is another area in which Dan and Peachey blunder: their contract that they make with each other requires that each stand by the other if he is in trouble. When Dan’s megalomania sets off a riot and outright rebellion once the villagers realize Dan is not in fact a god, and when Dan walks around talking to himself instead of running for safety to Billy’s village, Peachey and Billy then make a critical mistake by electing to stay with him. For this, the rioting tribesmen kill Billy and crucify Peachey.
One of Daniel Dravot’s most fatal errors is to suppose that he has a bond of brotherhood with the Kafir men that will protect him should they ever discover his deception. Although the Kafir men observe some of the superficial behaviors associated with Masonry, they do so as part of a ritualistic cult behavior, having blended Masonry with their polytheistic religion. When Dan is revealed as having lied to them about being a god, in Dan’s mind his lie is separate from his status as a Mason. The Kafirs make no such distinction. Even if they have sworn the same oaths as Dan and Peachey, and taken on the same obligations (which is not at all clear), once the Kafirs recognize Dan as an impostor god they take him as an impostor through and through: if Dan was ever a brother to them in the first place, he no longer is. This different style of reasoning is not at all what Dan and Peachey expect. They expect the Kafirs to reason as Europeans might, simply because they look European in their outward appearance, as opposed to having an African, Asian, or Arab features. Yet the resemblance is entirely superficial.
One might be brother to a King, but can a human being ever be a brother to a god? With the privileges of godhead, of course, come responsibilities and expectations that no human being can meet. One of the things expected of Peachey and Dan is that they know things only a god could know, including what gods should and shouldn’t be able to do. Yet two men lack even normal Kafir knowledge about how their gods are supposed to behave. They are unaware, for example, that there is a taboo against intermarriage with humans and that they are supposed to be invulnerable to injury. Peachey in particular feels his limitations, and is reminded of some “lost” knowledge of the Master Mason: facts or mysteries related to the Third Degree that have either been genuinely forgotten over the centuries or that never existed in the first place and that are spoken of merely to illustrate the limits of human knowledge. But if Peachey tells the truth—that the knowledge has been lost through no fault of his own—there is a very good chance that their carefully constructed illusion of godhead will collapse.
At this point, it should be obvious that Dan and Peachey are violating Masonic rules and traditions in many ways. They are also participating in Masonic rituals with irregular “Masons”. They have founded a Lodge without a charter or authorization, and have taken it upon themselves to raise men to the Third Degree without even knowing their real names. Had they done these things simply to promote Freemasonry or to help the Kafir men better themselves, their offenses might be excused. But they are not. They are using the Craft to commit large-scale blasphemy for material gain. Since all Masons by definition are theists and generally monotheists, and since one of a Freemason’s first duties is to his own God and religion, what Dan and Peachey are doing is inexcusable. Thus, while The Man Who Would Be King is a rollicking adventure tale for many, it is also a morality tale.
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The purpose of this extended essay is to answer the question, “To what extent is the disproportionate incarceration of African-American communities responsible for black nihilism?” Nihilism, according to Cornel West, is the “lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaningless, hopelessness, and (most important) lovelessness.” The question aims at emphasizing that throughout American history, African Americans have been repeatedly controlled by governing systems, from slavery to Jim Crow, which continue to have devastating impacts on their minds. The scope of the investigation is analyzing the past, as it is essential to understand the evolution of the prison system from laws and policies, including the American Constitution. The method is to use two specific subject lenses- history and psychology.
Get original essayThe historical lens allows us to analyze how this system came to be, whereas the psychological lens analyzes why. History is an essential part of this investigation because, in America, many don’t like to talk about slavery, but for black lives to truly matter, black history must also matter. Racial caste systems define the meaning of race in their time. Slavery defined blackness by one being held under bondage (literally a slave). The Jim Crow Era defined blackness through permanent second-class citizenship, while today being black, especially for men, means being a criminal. The exploitation and destruction of black people, through centuries of American history, has repeatedly evolved into systems designed to temporarily maintain racial control in America, given the constraints of the time period. Psychology involves the study of human behavior.
Racism and its implications still exist today and the disproportionate number of African Americans currently under correctional control exemplify this. Covert discrimination towards black people largely presents itself in shattered social institutions that we, a society of collective human beings, allow to grow and thrive. It can be concluded that the mass incarceration of blacks causes nihilism in their communities; however, it cannot be said that this singular factor, alone, causes the development of this nihilism, though it plays a large part. There has been a physical and psychological war on black people in America for centuries, evident in the expansions of the prison system, and denying this history only fuels more of the same in the future. Nothing can be done about these prisons until American society is willing to at least momentarily suspend the assumption that they absolutely need to have them.
Although America contains 5% of the world’s population, it houses approximately 25% of the world’s total prison population. A quarter of the people in the world are imprisoned in America, the “land of the free.” The legal system, influenced by race, is extremely crucial to today’s matters because to dismantle such a system, its existence must be acknowledged; racism (system of advantage based on race) and white oppression lie at the core of this civil rights issue.
This essay firmly addresses that black Americans are disproportionately targeted by many of the institutions that exist in America; America is built on the subjugation and second-class treatment of blacks. Approximately, 1 in every 15 African-American men are incarcerated, in comparison to 1 in every 106 white men, yet there are far less blacks (than whites) in the total U.S. population. Upon return to their predominantly black communities, the former prisoners are left with a strong feeling of hopelessness and an absence of meaning. Mass incarceration leaves its victims with psychologically oppressive consequences and nihilistic attitudes towards life. Such analysis of the way the criminal justice system functions helps us better understand the self-perpetuating hopelessness in black communities. If white nihilism does not exist, than that which causes the African-American experience to be hopeless needs to be investigated. It should also be made clear that I am addressing the social nihilism, not the typical philosophical kind.
Considering the question, this is an important topic because the failure to care across color lines lies at the very core of this system of control, like every other racial caste system that has existed in the United States. Americans need to be able to connect across these color lines, but, as time progresses, many seem less able to do so and the discrimination against blacks becomes less explicit, making it harder to fully address and dismantle the legacy of racism, hindering the start of the much-needed healing process. Today the systematic control of Black America manifests itself through the flaws of the criminal justice system; this system is only broken to the extent our society is broken and is working as intended. If our intention is to jail massive numbers of people or if it is believed that prison is an effective means of dealing with the myriad of social needs of the African-American community, than the system is pretty effective. This essay assesses how the mass incarceration of hundreds of thousands of black men (and women) causes nihilism in their communities.
Hopelessness and eternal peril has long been the essence of black America and now, more than ever. Though, a distinction must be made; nihilism is not the opposite of morality. Seemingly hopeless people can have morals, but such an absence of meaning can devastatingly lead to “wrong choices” and an increased motive to partake in “criminal” activity, and although the possibility of social cohesion could end this cycle of self-destructiveness, it seems unlikely that type of stability could be reached, as humans. Angela Davis, in Are Prisons Obsolete?, describes society's reliance on prisons to deal with discarded members of society, who largely happen to be people of color, and while making a case for the abolition of the prison industrial complex, claims that it is difficult “to envision a social order that does not rely on the threat of sequestering people in dreadful places designed to separate them from their communities and families.” Mass incarceration represents how deeply ingrained corruption lies within American society, and corporate America bears a large responsibility for the destruction of Black America. There is no denying the fact that mass incarceration, directly and indirectly, causes utter hopelessness in black communities.
Explaining crime and poverty as a result of black behavioral choice, further, disguises ways that both are caused by capitalism. Cornel West, established Black author and intellectual, is an essential part of this investigation. West explores how nihilism is a threat to black survival by explaining the impact of corporate market institutions. In America, these institutions have a disproportionate amount of capital and power, while employing a disportionate influence on how our culture is shaped and how society is governed. He claims that the primary motive of these institutions is to make profits, and their basic tactic is “to convince the public to consume.”
The fact that the public conforms to the normative reality that systemic inequality is a cultural choice suggests that black people are simply reluctant to their circumstance – that it’s their own fault they remain in poverty, but, really, this “behavior is the tragic response of a people bereft of resources in confronting the workings of U.S. capitalist society.” Out of economic deprivation arises violence, not because black poor people have bad attitudes or cultural deficiencies, but because without real economic safety, the “schemes required for survival” can include illegal business, like drug dealing. Therefore, it must be acknowledged that the “nihilistic threat” contributes to criminal behavior, and whereas legal businesses have the police to physically enforce the laws that govern them, disagreements and disputes in illegal businesses, often people of color, are settled and enforced by the practitioners themselves.
Essentially, the prison system “relieves the responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society, especially those produced by racism and, increasingly, global capitalism.” West has also stated that, “Americans must criticize and condemn immoral acts of black people, but they must do so cognizant of the circumstances in which people are born and under which they live… and many fall into the trap of blaming black poor people for their predicament,” but this so-called “predicament” is almost inescapable because ghetto life does indeed influence criminal behavior, reinforcing the need to partake in such activities in order to survive and prevent destruction to one’s own black body.
The psychological effect of mass incarceration extends beyond those who are incarcerated and to their families; the analysis finds that incarcerating parents leads to “intergenerational trauma.” A sense of hopelessness does not only affect the incarcerated but also the residents of these communities. Paternal incarceration is associated with behavioral misconduct, especially among boys. Children of incarcerated adults are at greater risk for economic instability because of the loss of their family’s main income provider, and as a result more often end up in foster care or homeless, both of which are significantly associated to academic underperformance, and the lack of a strong leading figure.
Approximately, 1 in 9 African-American children have one incarcerated parent and research also shows that there is a high risk that incarceration becomes an inherited trait. Today, reports also indicate that “incidents of family violence are highest in black homes.” Thus, children of incarcerated parents are more likely to find themselves incarcerated eventually. In a speech to the general public, former US President Lyndon B. Johnson has said that family breakdown “flows from centuries of oppression and persecution of the Negro man. It flows from the long years of degradation and discrimination, which have attacked his dignity and assaulted his ability to produce for his family.” The press took his claim as a condemnation of “the failure of Negro family life.” Black families are typically seen hopelessly at odds, dysfunctional, violent, and unsubstantial; but, what makes this worse is that “these perceptions are accepted and shared without question or qualm.” Martin Luther King Jr. once said that, “the shattering blows on the Negro family have made it fragile, deprived, and often psychopathic.”
Many Americans like to think that they deserved all the “good” in life, and that others, too, get what they deserve. However, this cannot be applied to the predicaments of the black poor because racism explicitly contradicts such ideas of justice. Social psychologists call this tendency a “belief in a just world.” Blaming the victim for their suffering is frequent outcome behavior, which justifies the current system. Belief in a just world can lead to not only the derogation of individual victims, but also to the derogation of entire social groups. This myth of deservedness is used by many, black and white, to justify the unpleasantries blacks encounter in many aspects of their lives, not just within the courts.
The myth of black criminality and inferiority is easily traced back to the early 1600’s, where Africans were bought and sold like human chattel to America. Though Black history does not begin with slavery, slavery is integral to understanding the origins of crude Black stereotypes. Slavery was an economic system in which 4 million pieces of “property” were vital to the South’s economic production system. After the civil war African Americans were arrested en masse, hence America’s first prison boom. Many were arrested for minor crimes, like loitering and vagrancy. Those arrested after the war provided labor to help rebuild the economy, and here, again, the exploitation of black people is seen for what some claim was a “greater purpose.” Presently, African Americans have been deemed disposable and unnecessary to the functioning of the new global economy, whereas earlier systems of control, like slavery, were designed to exploit and control black labor.
Black criminality and inhumanity is written into the American legislation; in Article IV of the Fugitive Slave Clause, just one example, it is declared that any “Person held to Service or Labour” who escaped from one state to another could be “delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.” From America’s very founding, the pursuit of the right to labor, and the right to live free of whipping and of the sale of one’s children, was forbidden for blacks. The Declaration of Independence proclaims, “All men are created equal,” yet blacks were fractioned in this “political arithmetic” as three-fifths man. Denying black humanity is at the roots of the deep-seated beliefs of Black inferiority. The 13th amendment, which abolished slavery, included a loophole in which whites could continue to exploit black people. According to the this law, once one is labeled a “criminal,” that said person is subject to various losses, including, but not limited to, disenfranchisement, the right serve on jury, basic public benefits, and housing and job discrimination. Black people are being stripped of rights supposedly gained in the civil rights movement and even though this amendment outlawed involuntary servitude, “white supremacy continued to be embraced by vast numbers of people and became deeply inscribed in new institutions.”
The bold promotion of white supremacy and black inferiority is the most effective and successful propaganda campaign, according to Tom Burrell, a black marketing communications pioneer and author of Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority. Through detailing his insights gained from working in the system, Burrell makes it clear to emphasize that “black people are not dark-skinned white people;” centuries of inhumane treatment make this so. The corporate market institutions that West was referring to earlier convince the public to consume into the myths of black villainy through an overabundance of false media portrayal.
The distortion of the history about people of color leads the public to make assumptions that may go unchallenged for a long time. These fixed notions (that blacks are lazy, violent, and criminals) live on in the 7 million Americans who currently have their freedom significantly restricted under correctional control Across the country, where 13% of African American men are disenfranchised from felony convictions, which is seven times the national average. Alabama has one of the nation's highest disenfranchisement rates: nearly a third of African American men in Alabama have lost the right to vote, and in the foreseeable future, these numbers will only continue to grow until black humanity is acknowledge.
In her book, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria, Beverly Daniel Tatum, an acclaimed psychologist, delves into the reasoning behind selfsegregation and racial identity development, while also referring to this “mythical norm,” originally described by Audre Lorde in “Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference.” Lorde claims that this norm is usually defined as a white, thin, male who is young, heterosexual, Christian, and financially secure; nevertheless, “the trappings of power that reside in society are within this mythical norm.” And those who are not included in this power often identify at least one way in which they are different (such as black, homosexual, or poor) and it is assumed that to be the main cause of all oppression, forgetting other distortions around difference. Standing outside this norm enables those who are different to continually be oppressed subjugated so that whites (the norm) can maintain power. So blackness is not the only reason for incarcerating those who possess such a trait, but, indeed, blackness (and racist intentions) are so deeply woven into the foundation of the system that it controls the way one lives.
Blackness, in itself, can also explain the disparities within the criminal justice system. Black criminality is closely linked to the black struggle. Ta-Nehisi Coates, acclaimed author and writer for The Atlantic, explores how it is not surprising that, “in the midst of the civil-rights movement, rising crime was repeatedly linked with black advancement.” He then proceeds to state compelling statistics: “even as violent crime declined between 1925 and 1940, Louisiana’s incarceration rate increased by more than 50 percent. Twice as many inmates entered state correctional facilities in low-crime 1940 as in high-crime 1925. At Angola State Penal Farm, the white population rose by 39 percent while the African American inmate population increased by 143 percent.” According to the Equal Justice Initiative, because black people were inferior, they needed and actually benefited from slavery. Following slavery there was a presumption of guilt and dangerousness assigned to blacks, as whites defended vigilante violence against black people as necessary to protect themselves from black ‘criminals.’” Racism erodes our humanity and it has been doing so for centuries.
As a result, white America has benefited from the theft of black liberties for centuries. It is an established fact that police power has been disproportionately used against communities of color. This abuse of power leads to the destruction of black morale and reinforces the cyclic feelings of hopelessness. Thus, the death and destruction of the black bodies have become to be indicative of social and political progression. In order to fully understand black disadvantage in mainstream society, dominant and subordinate group culture must be looked at. Michelle Alexander, in her book The New Jim Crow, explores the maintenance of racial hierarchy in America. She states that, “mass incarceration operates as a tightly networked system of laws, policies, customs, and institutions, that operate collectively to ensure the subordinate status of a group defined largely by race.” Tatum also describes this relationship, but with the use of a psychological lens, opposed to Alexander’s sociological choice. According to Tatum, dominant groups establish the circumstances with which the subordinates operate; the dominant group also has the greatest influence in determining the structure of society. Whether or not we’re speaking in racial terms, in present-day America, white men typically hold the power over minorities, especially the black poor.
The relationship of the dominants to the subordinates is also one in which the targeted group has been labeled as defective or substandard in significant ways, hence, the dominant group assigns roles to the subordinates.” Today, blacks have been relegated to second-class citizenship because they are too often portrayed as savage, inhumane criminals who are unable to help themselves. Tatum also claims that, “dominant groups generally do not like to be reminded of the existence of inequality... as rationalizations have been created to justify such social arrangements.” This is a hefty statement as it prompts us to remember the taboo nature of talking about “race” and how without talking about racism and the legacy of slavery (the reminders of inequality), the crisis of mass incarceration and stereotypical images of blacks can never be fully addressed. Alexander also states that, “few legal rules meaningfully constrain the police in the drug war, and huge financial incentives have been granted to law enforcement to engage in mass drug arrests through military style tactics.”
American presidents are not exempt from the scrutiny that comes with abusing the system. Nixon, after all, officially declared a “War on Drugs” in 1971 and said that drug abuse was “public enemy number one.” During Nixon’s time in office incarceration rates began their “historic rise.” He claimed many things, including that heroin dealers were “literally the slave traders of our time and traffickers in living death. They must be hunted to the end of the earth,” which has a strong ironic quality, given how blacks have been repeatedly traded and trafficked against their will. Nixon’s campaign lacked real substance, but Reagan’s election in the 1980’s turned Nixon’s rhetorical war on drugs into a literal one. Presidential efforts in maintaining a war on Black America through the “presumption of guilt” and dangerousness assigned to African Americans has made minority communities a target for policing and susceptible to unfair administration of criminal justice. Though it’s tempting to think that the need for such strategies, like intense police surveillance and racial profiling, disappeared with Jim Crow Laws, their legacy lives on in the “frequent and sometimes fatal harassment black men experience at the hands of white police officers.”
Many studies have concluded that whites have strong unconscious associations between blackness and criminality. Implicit biases (justifications concocted by white people to excuse racist behavior) have been shown to affect policing; many young men of color are subjected to frequent stops, searches, and violence, among other aspects of the criminal justice system, all of which lead to higher rates of childhood suspension, expulsion, and arrest at school. Police officers engage in widespread racial profiling and stop blacks on streets and sidewalks more often than it is justifiable, in terms of objective (race-neutral) criteria. Although today’s media focuses on criminalizing blacks, it also allows us to witness the shocking accumulation of injured and mutilated black bodies, especially young black ones. In response to these deaths, Americans were told to keep struggling, keep “hope” alive, and keep faith. After George Zimmerman was acquitted for murdering Trayvon Martin, President Obama addressed the nation and plead Blacks to keep fighting for change because “each successive generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes toward race” and, if they work hard enough, they will move closer to “becoming a more perfect union.” Despite Martin’s “corpse lingering in the minds of young people and Zimmerman’s smile of relief after the verdict, Americans are told that things are actually getting better.”
Blacks are psychologically taught to shield themselves from the pain, protest the loss, and still secure the artificial privilege of whiteness. In a societal context, where blaming the “other” has been standard operating procedure, it is been easier to do that than critically examine the large structural conditions that have created this situation. African-Americans cannot blame “others” when society tells them at every level that they are the problem. Whether one succumbs to the devaluing pressures of the dominant culture or successfully resists them, the fact is that dealing with oppressive systems from the underside, regardless of the strategy, is physically and psychologically taxing. Breaking beyond the structural and psychological limitations imposed on one’s groups is possible, but not easily achieved.
The disproportionate incarceration rates experienced by black people contribute to race-based inequalities in other aspects of their lives. Blacks were ‘brainwashed’ with the idea that they were unable to take care of themselves. This unquestioned dependency, what psychologists call learned helplessness, is one of the many reinforcements of a firmly established, race-based inferiority.
Systematic barriers were placed for the main purpose of keeping the black poor poor, greatening the wealth gap between black and white. According to the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), “in the American criminal justice system, wealth — not culpability —shapes outcomes. Indigent people are unfairly disadvantaged at every step in a system that treats the rich and guilty better than the poor and innocent.” It was discovered that about four out of five criminal defendants qualify as indigent before the courts, reinforcing how wealth and status (typically held by white men in American society) can be used to escape the system. Bryan Stevenson, founder of the EJI and author of Just Mercy frames the relationship with poverty and the criminal justice system in a rather elegant way: “My work with the poor and the incarcerated has persuaded me that the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice. Finally, I’ve come to believe that the true measure of our commitment to justice, the character of our society, our commitment to the rule of law, fairness, and equality cannot be measured by how we treat the rich, the powerful, the privileged, and the respected. The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned… We are all implicated when we allow others to be mistreated.”
In 2013, white households in the United States had a median wealth of $144,200 -- almost 13 times the median wealth of black households at $11,200. This racial wealth gap appears now and cannot fully be addressed without discussing history. Advantage has been accumulated over generations and black people have been left out of this. Today, many whites do not understand that they are beneficiaries of these long, racist policies. Richard Rothstein’s book, The Color of Law, chronicles how such policies at all levels of government robbed black families and communities of wealth. White advantage in wealth is emphasized by the fact that the rules of the economy are aimed to benefit those at the top, and white Americans have had a lengthy reign. To be part of a solution and fixing the future, many Americans need to come out of their gated neighborhoods and bring the wealth back to their communities. To do this, true stories must be told and we’ll need to work for repair and reparations. This is just the beginning of a truth and reconciliation process.
However, the process of seeking truth and reconciliation for blacks, in and out of prison, is difficult because they live in a world that looks down on them in contempt; the destructive, cyclic nature of black communities upon return makes the formerly incarcerated highly vulnerable to re-entry. When released from prison, if the formerly incarcerated don’t have jobs or motives to be productive citizens, they become even more prone to criminality and drugs. The American job market sees black men who have never been criminals as if they were and for some who have been labeled a “criminal,” the ‘check the box’ policy further prevents blacks from getting jobs. “Just as ex-offenders had to learn to acculturate themselves to prison, they have to learn to re-acculturate themselves to the outside. But the attitude that helps one survive in prison is almost the opposite of the kind needed to make it outside. Craig Haney, a professor at UC Santa Cruz who studies the cognitive and psychological effects of incarceration, has observed: A tough veneer that precludes seeking help for personal problems, the generalized mistrust that comes from the fear of exploitation, and a tendency to strike out in response to minimal provocations are highly functional in many prison contexts but problematic virtually everywhere else.”
Even though more than half of all young adult black men are currently under correctional control, mass incarceration continues to be classified as a criminal justice issue over a racial justice or civil rights issue or crisis. The prison industrial complex is such a large part of American lives that its existence (or motives) tends not to be questioned when, indeed, that is what should be happening. The illusion of a “post-racial” America allows mass incarceration to thrive. Today's government and social sciences could possibly “fix” this broken system once all of us acknowledge that it is truly broken. There is no way to fix the prison system without first fixing other social problems too. Instead of solely focusing on decarceration, other factors that lead people into prisons should be envisioned: “demilitarization of schools, revitalization of education at all levels, a health system that provides free physical and mental care to all, and a justice system based on reparation and reconciliation rather than retribution and vengeance.” A social movement is needed to expose how the practices of American society (criminal justice system) are unsustainable, especially for Blacks.
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Get custom essayIn the end, it must be asked, “why is black suffering increasing at alarming rates?” And the answer to this question is quite simple: Black history has too long been ignored. As a result, society is burdened by this history of racial inequality. However, “for as long as hope remains and meaning is preserved, the possibility of overcoming oppression stays alive. The self-fulfilling prophecy of the nihilistic threat is that without hope there can be no future, that without meaning there can be no struggle.”
Whether or not explicit, power and privilege shape our understanding of crime and justice. This paper will aim to answer the research question, ‘how does the criminal justice system further racial disparities among African American males in the United States? ’ In order to answer this question, the intersectionality of race and class will need to be further analyzed. This paper will begin by examining the numeric differences in incarceration among white and black young men, look at the policies in place that may allow for these disparities, and lastly, examine how incarceration furthers social inequities among the black community.
Get original essayRace is commonly used as a means to signify the identity and differences among individuals. Through research analysis, it becomes clear that there is a direct relationship between racial and class disparities in the United States. The racial threat theory seeks to explain how discrimination-based policies are employed to punish a specific population. This theory suggests that black Americans are convicted far more harshly than white Americans, due to the fact that they are perceived as a threat. Class bias in criminal sentencing is suggested by findings that defendants with higher education levels will receive relatively shorter sentence times and are generally less likely to be incarcerated for drug-related crimes. Patterns in increased incarceration rates among black men who hold lower levels of educations indicate that perceptions and stigma surrounding low-income minority neighbourhoods which causes disproportionate attention by law enforcement in these areas. The intersectionality of race and class allows for a deeper analysis of the unfair justifications and consequences of discriminatory policing practices in the United States.
The growing rates of incarceration is a reflection of the decisions by policymakers to increase the number and the length of prison sentences in the United States. Rising crime rates in the 1970s and 1980s led officials to take a war on drugs approach in dealing with street-level crime. In the 1980s and 1990s, legislators signed laws that ensured that convictions not only led to imprisonment but that these terms lasted for longer periods of time. The principal methods that these sentences were enforced were through the implementation of a mandatory minimum sentence, three strikes and life-without-parole. The mandatory minimum sentence laws ensure that individuals who committed certain crimes were given minimum prison terms. In effect, the three strikes law would require a minimum of a 25-year sentence for those who had been convicted of a third felony. These methods are evidence of a clear policy choice to move from non-punitive laws to punitive sentences that disallowed for the rehabilitation of those affected. There have since been minimal changes to the criminal justice system that create exceptions to the scope of these laws, for example, the power of a prison official to grant time off for good behaviour. These changes however do very little in addressing the systemic issues that allow for the use of highly punitive policies in today’s current political environment. These policy changes hold far greater consequences for specific groups more than others and have exasperated racial biases in the criminal justice system.
In the book titled, No Equal Justice, David Cole argues that, These double standards are not, of course, explicit; on the face of it, the criminal law is color-blind and class-blind. But in a sense, this only makes the problem worse. The rhetoric of the criminal justice system sends the message that our society carefully protects everyone’s constitutional rights, but in practice, the rules assure that law enforcement prerogatives will generally prevail over the rights of minorities and the poor. By affording criminal suspects substantial constitutional rights, in theory, the Supreme Court validates the results of the criminal justice system as fair. That formal fairness obscures the systemic concerns that ought to be raised by the fact that the prison population is overwhelmingly poor and disproportionately black. The double standards evident in the criminal justice system work to the advantage of those who have an abundance of social and economic wealth. These policies continue to be in effect due to their perceived legitimacy and justification among white Americans.
Racial profiling is the use by the police of suspicions based on an individual’s race, ethnicity, or religion rather than their behaviour. The use of racial profiling by police officers was developed from the drug courier profile which was created in the 1980s by the Drug Enforcement Agency as a way to address drug trafficking in the United States. Police officers were trained to look for indicators, such as nervousness and other behavioural indicators that fit the drug courier profile. Although the evidence did not indicate that African-Americans were more likely to be involved with drugs than white Americans, they were still singled out, as the DEA training materials depicted minority faces at a greater level. As a result of policy changes and training given to law enforcement, among various other factors, traffic stops have become a primary method in which members of the community may be racially profiled.
According to the Washington Post, stop and frisk data only produces crime outcomes 3% of the time. This means that 97% of the time that African Americans are pulled over, they are being profiled without reason. Not only does this serve to refute claims of the effectiveness of profiling, but it indicates that resources are being wasted on a method that produces minimal results. In the book titled “Suspect Citizens,” the authors found that: “Blacks are almost twice as likely to be pulled over as whites — even though whites drive more on average,” “blacks are more likely to be searched following a stop,” and “just by getting in a car, a black driver has about twice the odds of being pulled over and about four times the odds of being searched.” The data compiled indicates that African Americans are unfairly and unjustly targeted as potential suspects for a crime and that the use of race as an indicator of suspicion creates disproportional results. The damage of racial profiling is far greater than many realize, this experience can cause many African Americans to be wary of law enforcement and has evidently increased racial tensions in America.
Rates The United States holds the world’s highest incarceration rates, with 1 in 9 prisoners serving life sentences. By 2002, nearly 12 percent of young black men were incarcerated. In 2004, black men constituted 43.3 percent of those incarcerated although they only accounted for 13 percent of the total population. In 2010, blacks were incarcerated at six times and Hispanics at three times the rate for non-Hispanic whites. Although nationwide prison counts have reduced over the years, there still remains a visible gap of incarceration rates amongst specific groups and a significant number of the population remains imprisoned.
A survey completed by the U.S. Sentencing Commission found that when black men and white men commit the same crime, black men on average receive a sentence that is almost 20 percent longer. Despite the fact that white Americans engage in drug offences at a higher rate than black Americans do, blacks are incarcerated for drug offences at a rate that is 10 times greater than that of whites. Statistics show that although African Americans account for 37% of crack cocaine users, they are 21.2 times more likely than white people to be imprisoned for possession of crack cocaine. The question then is why is crack punished far more severely than cocaine? Crack is generally used in lower-income neighbourhoods due to the fact that is a less costly form of cocaine, while cocaine is used primarily by wealthy white Americans. As a result of crack being deemed a drug used primarily by the black population, crack cocaine users are punished far more harshly than cocaine users.
The perception of crack cocaine as a ‘black drug’ increases the likelihood of black drug users being incarcerated: an individual found in possession of crack cocaine can be convicted for possessing merely 5 grams, meanwhile, nearly 500 grams of cocaine would be needed to be found guilty of the same charge. In this instance, poverty and racism serve as a catalyst of the war on drugs approach which fails to recognize why crack cocaine initially entered these communities. In other words, the social and economic narratives were ignored in the determination of these policies. Clearly, social perceptions and biases have a direct influence on the implementation of policies as white Americans remain “relatively untouched by anti-drug efforts compared to blacks,” therefore increasing sentencing disparities in the United States and serving as a means to “legitimize” crime perceptions in black communities.
Mass incarceration has operated quite similarly to the Jim Crow era of anti-black laws; further de-stabilizing black communities and maintaining historical social and economic disadvantages. From the life course perspective, the impact of a criminal conviction lasts far longer than the punishment incurred. Evidence shows that incarceration is closely linked to negative social and economic factors such as unemployment and restrictions of political and social rights. People of colour, particularly those who are less wealthy, are most affected by the punitive policies employed by the American criminal justice system. Among formerly incarcerated black men, 35.2% remained unemployed, while white men experience the lowest levels of unemployment, at 18.4%. Along with the high levels of unemployment, employees with a past criminal record face also receive significantly lower wages. Black men and women are most affected as stigmas surrounding past criminal convictions in relation to race cause employers to be reluctant in their hiring decisions. Incarceration may increase barriers to economic stability and mobility.
According to Bruce Western and Becky Petit, “State prisoners average just a tenth-grade education, and about 70 percent have no high school diploma.” As a result, past offenders generally lack the work experience, human capital and soft skills required to successfully reintegrate back into the workforce and obtain housing. These factors create a self- fulfilling prophecy as individuals are unable to sufficiently make financial provisions for their family and are more likely to return to criminal activities after their release. The National Research Council of the National Academies found that when offenders are able to secure stable employment, their ties with criminal activities generally desist. The impact of a prison sentence is not individualistic but rather has a cumulative and intergenerational effect. Families of offenders are disproportionately affected by the financial burden during and after the incarceration period. A disproportionate number of those that are incarcerated grew up in racially segregated poor neighbourhoods and their social and economic marginality is only enhanced by the resulting inequalities of incarceration. Women and children are most affected by the mass incarcerations of African American men.
The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 disallows people with past drug convictions to use cash assistance and food stamp programs. Although some states have repealed or minimized this act, several still enforce the restrictions as indicated by the act. Resulting socioeconomic disadvantages affect a family’s ability to accumulate wealth as well as increases the likelihood that the children will also be incarcerated at a point in their life. Approximately 2.7 million children in the United States live in a household where at least one parent is incarcerated. In addition to this disadvantage, there are decreased levels of civic and political engagement among former prisoners (reword) and those most affected by their imprisonment.
In ‘Politics of Race and the Criminal Justice System,’ Paul Testa argues that, “those most affected by disparities in the current system are the least likely to participate in politics, while those relatively unaffected are often unlikely to acknowledge the issue as one in need of political solutions”. This argument brings forth an interesting issue in that the prevalence of incarceration among minorities, more specifically African American men, may not be understood by non-minorities due to the fact that they have not been negatively affected by the current systems in place. With this gap in understanding, many may not acknowledge where disproportionate incarceration issues stem from and view the fact that a growing number of black men are incarcerated as an anomaly.
Research corroborates this theory as a study indicated that while 68% of blacks perceived the criminal justice system as biased against the black community, only 25% of whites felt that the system produced biased results. Perceived biases among the black community indicate a lack of trust in the criminal justice system but the lack of perceived biases among whites indicates the disproportional effect of punitive laws. Additionally, the mass incarceration of members of the black community can minimize their ability to politically mobilize. In America, citizens that are incarcerated are ineligible to vote but those who are awaiting trial are legally eligible to. Due to structural barriers to voter registration and voting, individuals are systematically prevented from employing their voting rights. The fact that the majority of those who are incarcerated are black means that black voters are amongst those most affected.
Public beliefs about the fairness of policies and methods employed by law enforcement have a direct effect on the legal system’s claim to legitimacy. The use of excessive force and racial profiling has significantly reduced the public trust of the criminal justice system, particularly police. A national survey indicated that half of African Americans reported having a close relationship with someone who was previously incarcerated, while only one out of ten white respondents knew someone who had been previously convicted. Thus, African Americans are more negatively affected by the punitive nature of the criminal justice system. This negative perception of public safety can cause individuals to be less cooperative with police.
A study was completed to determine the implications of the war on drugs on the public perception of police legitimacy. Participants were surveyed on their perception of police to respond to a burglary call. Thirty-five percent of black responders, compared to sixty percent of white responders, felt that their complaint would be taken seriously. The results from the study indicate that there is a lower level of trust by American Americans in the police department's ability to protect the black community. Public policies that detrimentally target visible minorities, has been directly related to increases in offences among both black and white Americans. Negative perceptions of the police affect the legitimacy of the justice system and can foster a false sense of immunity and increase the number of crimes committed among white Americans. An experiment conducted by Amy Hackney and Jack Glaser found that white students were more likely to cheat on an exam if they noticed that black students were being more closely watched. Although the study was done in a minimal context, it indicates the counterproductive nature of excessive incarceration policies. By focusing on a particular group of people without cause, members of other groups may be able to complete crimes and go by unnoticed.
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Get custom essayThe significantly higher rates in which black men are incarcerated relative to white men depicts the effect of racial and class biases in the United States Criminal Justice System. As discussed in this paper, sentencing and imprisonment disparities are largely a result of discriminatory punitive policies which allow for the employment of racial bias in the justice system. The underlying motivation for harsher punishments for crack cocaine has allowed for a political and legal means to justify racial biases concerning drug use in the United States. Racial discrimination in the criminal justice system is not only unwarranted but unacceptable as it creates devastating outcomes by furthering the social and economic immobility of black Americans. The mass incarceration of African Americans affects the ability of the black community to sufficiently politically mobilize. These outcomes conflict with the foundations of the American criminal justice system, which rest on fairness and equal protection under the law.