The History O' Revolution Be Penned In Dead Man's Blood

Ahoy!

Are ye ready for another voyage on The Jar of Dirt? I warn ye, this time we'll be braving not only the seven seas, but the seas of time! The winds, if you should so choose to set sail with me today, will take us back through eras of revolution.

Why this sudden journey through time?

Well, Charles Dickens is the compass pointing us on our merry way, and if Dickens is the compass, then A Tale of Two Cities is the map.

While these are the tools which will guide us back through time, they are not the port from which we set sail. The starting point of our journey is in a time much closer to our own.

In 2011, a revolution began in Libya. The people of the country fought to overthrow the oppressive government which they had been forced to live under.

A war was fought. The people rose up. The government fell.

But, what was the cost?

While false reports were released stating that the death toll had reached as high as 50,000, the actual count is - as of last month - an estimated 4,700 dead and 2,100 missing rebel supporters. 6,800 dead, maybe more, maybe less, and that's just from on the side of the revolutionaries. While 6,800 is far less than 50,000, is it any less terrible? Can the loss of life really be considered any less terrible simply because the number of those lost is lower than expected? Is it a cost that people should be so willing and eager to pay?

This where Dickens points us through A Tale of Two Cities.

He leads us back through the centuries to the era of the French Revolution. As he begins the novel, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." While people in other places in the world prospered at the closing of the eighteenth century, the people of France suffered. The common people had nothing while the rich had everything. There was no middle ground; what little there had been was lost somewhere as the people choked down their last scraps of spoiled food. The people were poor, cold, and hungry.

At some point, the poverty became something deeper than just a lack of money, the illness that came with the cold spawned a fever that could not be broken, and the hunger grew until it left nothing inside of the people of France but a ravenous void that could not be filled.

This is the image of desperation which Dickens weaves.

The image of revolution he creates is far, far worse.

According to Dickens, revolution began with vengeance. The people began to believe the unfillable void could be filled, filled with the blood of those who they blamed for their suffering.

According to Dickens, the French Revolution was an unspeakable horror. It was a bloodbath in which the blood of the innocent ran just as freely as the blood of the guilty. It was a nightmare in which the guillotine took the place of God in the minds and hearts of many.

But, what does this mean in the context of today? What is it that Dickens was trying to make us see?

Revolution comes at a cost. If there is a long standing system in place, a system which as many will fight to the death to protect as to destroy, the price to be payed will be in the form of life to be taken. I'm not saying that this is the case for every revolution; I do believe that it is possible for people to see change through without violence. However, as history has frequently shown, people often act without cosidering the price at which change comes.

While I cannot rightly judge the French Revolution nor the Libyan Revolution as I have not directly experienced either, I do believe that the question which Dickens poses throughout his novel is worth asking in both cases.

Was it worth the cost?

...

Well, me hearties, I do believe that our journey through time has come to an end.

Until next time...


(Numbers from Libyan Revolution are taken from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/08/libyan-revolution-casualties-lower-expected-government )

What Be the Meaning O' These Colors?

Ahoy!

Welcome me hearties, aboard the Jar of Dirt for yet another journey on the high seas of world literature! It's time to weigh anchor for it seems we have found the tradewinds of Helen Oyeyemi's The Icarus Girl!

While this route can lead to many places, I've got one particular port in mind.

So...

What be the meaning o' these colors?

That is to say, what does the title mean?

The Icarus Girl...

Well, to really answer that question, we need to go back far beyond the Golden Age of Piracy.

Icarus is a figure from Greek mythology.
He was the son Daedalus, the Athenian craftsman hired by King Minos of Crete. Daedalus' job was to build the Labyrinth to house the Minotaur. When Daedalus helped King Minos' daughter aid Theseus in defeating the Minotaur, the King imprisoned the craftsman and his son, Icarus. In order to escape, Daedalus fashioned wings from wax and feathers. When giving Icarus his pair of wings, Daedalus imparted a single warning; do not fly to close to the sun. Caught up in the freedom of flight, Icarus neglected to heed his fathers words. The sun melted the wax of his wings, and Icarus plummeted to his death.

Now, what on earth does this story have to do with the tale of a young girl who meets an evil twin spirit?

Well...

In The Icarus Girl, we are introduced to Jessamy, a girl of mixed English and Yoruba heritage who is having trouble finding her place in the world, and TillyTilly, a twin spirit.

After reading The Icarus Girl, I have come to the conclusion that TillyTilly is the Icarus Girl referred to in the novel's title.

I began to suspect this as, throughout the novel, TillyTilly repeatedly asks Jess questions like, "Oi, d'you still want to be able to do the things I can?" She goes so far as to reassure Jess that it will be "only for a little, little while," and that it wouldn't hurt at all. TillyTilly goes on to explain that switching means that "you'll be me for a little bit...and I'm going to be you."

When the girls finally do "switch," several things are revealed.

One; TillyTilly's existence is not what one would call pleasant. Jess experiences what it is like to be a spirit like TillyTilly, discovering that the world has seemingly become to vast and open while simultaneously being far too cramped and cluttered. Jess also discovers the fact that TillyTilly (when not occupying Jess' body) is invisible to the world; when out of her body, Jess cannot be seen or heard by her mother or her father.

Two; TillyTilly is wiling to do whatever it takes to be alive. As revealed through Jess' out of body experience, TillyTilly is pure spirit, unable to be seen or heard. In order to escape the prison of her existence, she is willing to lie to the one person who could see her. She told Jess that their "switch" would only be temporary and that it wouldn't hurt. Jess finds out immediately that TillyTilly lied, the "switch" causing her excruciating pain. Eventually - after Jess' mother locks "Tilly-who-was-Jess" in the basement, TillyTilly finally "switches" back.

Later in the novel, when TillyTilly once again takes Jess' body - this time with no intention of ever "switching" back - Jess is trapped in "the bush," a sort of spiritual wasteland, a "wilderness of the mind," which is TillyTilly's home. This is the place that TillyTilly wanted to escape from, her true prison. It is only when Jess' body is injured in a car accident that TillyTilly's power over Jess is weakened enough for Jess to reclaim her own body.

So...

How does all of this make TillyTilly the Icarus Girl?

Well...

Like Icarus, TillyTilly is a prisoner. As Icarus was imprisoned because of the actions of his father, TillyTilly became a prisoner of the "wilderness of the mind" simply because she was a twin and she died. She craves freedom and wants nothing more than to escape her prison, her confinement. While Icarus simply had the means of reaching his freedom handed to him, TillyTilly had to struggle to escape, reaching the point where she would lie and trick her way into a body, forever pushing out its rightful inhabitant simply so she could have a chance at living.

Also like Icarus, TillyTilly does manage to escape. While Daedalus gave his son wings of wax and feather, TillyTilly reaches freedom through Jess. She uses Jess' body as a means of escaping from her prison, thus making Jess - in a way - TillyTilly's wings.

And finally, just like Icarus, TillyTilly falls. In both stories, a simple form of freedom was not enough; in both stories, greed for something greater, for something more led to a terrible downfall. While Icarus flew too close to the sun, his wings melting, TillyTilly stayed in Jess' body for too long. Her lust for life, for control, led her to steal Jess' body for too long, remaining inside when Jess' body is caught in a devastating car crash. As Jess' body was injured, weakened, so was TillyTilly's power. This lead to Jess once again fighting TillyTilly for her own body, a fight which eventualy ended in the apparent destruction of TillyTilly.

...

Well, it would appear that we have reached the end of yet another voyage! I hope that you found it to your liking, that the seas weren't too stormy, and (most of all) that a case o' scurvy hasn't set in!

So, until next time...

Fairwinds to you all!

The Maiden Voyage of the Jar of Dirt

Ahoy there my fellow buccaneers!

I know it’s been a while, but here it is – my first official blog entry!

After much debate as to which navigational course I should take first, I set sail in the direction of close reading on Anna Akhmatova’s poem “Lot’s Wife.”

Before I get to the close reading, here is the poem itself;

And the just man trailed God's shining agent,

over a black mountain, in his giant track,

while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:

"It's not too late, you can still look back

 

at the red towers of your native Sodom,

the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,

at the empty windows set in the tall house

where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed."

 

A single glance: a sudden dart of pain

stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .

Her body flaked into transparent salt,

and her swift legs rooted to the ground.

 

Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem

too insignificant for our concern?

Yet in my heart I never will deny her,

who suffered death because she chose to turn.

 

Now, on to the close reading.

“Lot’s Wife” is an allusion to the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah. The allusion specifically revolves around the wife of King Lot, a woman mentioned only once in the Bible.

So, what deeper meaning was Akhmatova trying to convey through her extension of the story of a woman mentioned in only one line of the Bible? Well…

Through her use of allusion, Akhmatova conveys a sense – on both a personal and widespread level – of what things were like in her country in her lifetime, an era of oppression in which the past was something people were ordered to forget.

Now, before I proceed, a brief but crucial piece of background information; Akhmatova lived in early 20^th century Russia. It was a time of political unrest and tension. It was the era in which the Bolsheviks took power in Russia, beginning a reign of terror in which the Russian government oppressed its people, controlling nearly every aspect of their lives, dictating what they could and could not say or do.

So, how does this apply to “Lot’s Wife?”

Well, this context provides a revealing perspective from which this poem can be examined.

The line “It’s not too late, you can still look back,” is a reference to a desire to turn to the past. In the era of the Bolsheviks in Russia, the fact that people lost so many of the freedoms that they had had in the past would have made the idea of looking back at the past an attractive one. As Akhmatova goes on to describe the things at which Lot’s wife is looking back at – the square in which she sang, her spinning shed, the home in which she raised her family – this idea of nostalgic reflection is further strengthened. All of the things which, according to Akhmatova, Lot’s wife is tempted to turn back to look at are things which could hold fond memories. Use of the word “blessed” specifically indicates the good she finds in her past even as she flees her home in a whirl of darkness and chaos. In the time of the Bolsheviks, when life as the people of Russia knew it was turned upside-down, sending them into a period of danger and fear, to look back at the good found in the past would have made sense as the oppression of their lives held little good or hope for a brighter future.

Akhmatova goes on to describe the death of Lot’s wife, detailing the way in which a single glance backward led to “a sudden dart of pain stitching her eyes before she made a sound.” In the context of Akhmatova’s era, this fits with the way in which those who took over Russia tried to silence any dissenters before they had a chance to really speak out.

The line “her swift legs rooted to the ground,” is a more personal reference to Akhmatova’s own life. After the execution of her first ex-husband, Akhmatova’s career essentially nearly came to a total halt. Though they were divorced, Akhmatova was still considered to be an associate of her ex-husband, therefore causing her to be blacklisted by publishers as many of them were controlled by the same government which had ordered his execution.

The final lines of the poem refer to Lot’s wife as a woman “who suffered death because she chose to turn.” According to the poem, Lot’s wife – though her only intention was to look back at the good – was punished for turning back. In early 20^th century Russia, to look back at the past, to long for or to strive for a return to the past, was met with similar punishment. If the Russian people were looking to the past, it therefore meant that they did not support the new leaders, the new system, thus making them opposition – a threat that must be eliminated. Many were killed simply because they did not embrace their new way of life. They were killed because they decided to turn to look back at what they’d had before.

“Lot’s Wife” is a poem which deals with actions and consequences, with crime and punishment. While it is based on a biblical allusion, it is Akhmatova’s extensive elaboration which conveys her meaning.

…

Well, it seems that we have officially navigated through close reading number one!

I welcome any and all feedback (I promise, if you disagree with me, you won’t have to walk the plank!)

And it would seem that it is once again time to weigh anchor and set sail!

Until next time!