Beginnings of a Paper

Entry #17
Work: The River Between by Ngũnĩ Wa Thiong'o

I've decided to switch my paper topic to the work above after the initial revulsion I spoke of in my last entry. I'll use this entry to pound out my ideas a little.

I'm seeing an awful lot of the matriarchy that Waiyaki's father, Chege told him had existed in days gone by, even though the tribal religion seems to be centered, at least on the surface, around a patriarchal order. According to the tale, the women drove the men too hard, were unfair, and the men revolted.

And this matriarchy no longer exists, or so Chege tells Waiyaki -- but is this true? So much of the Gikuyu religion is earth-based, and therefore mother-based. They are close to the land. I'm seeing the two ridges, opposing mountains as breasts, the river as a birth canal. Even the cover art depicts it in this way. Is a goddess religion possible without a matriarchy? Or, if not a matriarchy, can it exist in the presence of a patriarchy?

Their religion descends from two shared parents, Gikuyu & Mumbi. Christianity has only a male godhead and each of the subsidiaries (the Christ and the Holy Ghost) are male. Yes, the virgin served as an incubator for the Christ, but she was a vessel only; chosen, yes, but not a goddess in her own right.

It is only through a male-centered religion that the white man was able to infiltrate peacefully these people. Christianity appeals to the disgruntled male, owner of property, head of household -- and with Christianity, Mumbi can be forsaken. Joshua's rebellious daughters can be forgotten, cut off because they are female and they are not in the image of the perfect One.

I'm merely hammering out these thoughts as I have them. No idea if I can find the textual support yet or independent research to support the point -- which I realize I haven't made yet.

The tribal culture of the Gikuyu and the white man's Christian religion are both forms of control of a people. Gikuyu people remain close to the earth because the earth feeds them. Waiyaki's attempt to blend learning with the tribal customs is honorable, but doomed, as the earth is lost in Christianity. The Gikuyu roots are in the earth, and the Christian religion transcends the earthly, therefore they cannot coexist. One necessarily negates the other.

There. That's as close right now that I can come right now to a thesis statement. I still have the last several dozen pages to read before morning, so I'd better get on it.

Till later...

Spring Break

Entry #16
Work: The River Between

I've been watching, in dribs and drabs, a PBS video collection entitled This Far By Faith. I'm looking for material for a somewhat topic-defined paper for Reading Black, Reading Feminist (WMNST 462). It's facinated me in reading black feminist writing that Christianity seems to have such a central role in their lives, in their psyches, and yet, the institution of Christianity is in most cases very patriarchal in its execution. (I just re-read that sentence and was struck by the juxtaposition of the words "Christianity" and "execution." Hmm...)

I'm on disk five now, and the story has progressed to the civil rights era, Black Power, return to African beliefs and religious practices. And it reminded me that I need to finish reading The River Between.

I'm in no hurry. Spring break stretches out before me, and I feel obligated to fritter away some of it. Then again, I also have the urge to make the most of ever moment, and if that involves enjoying the soft flannel of my nightgown for a few extra hours on a Monday morning, so be it.

This post is intended to relate to The River Between. And I'm thinking about my women's studies paper as well. TRB focuses much on the traditions of the people being usurped by a moral righteousness of the "saving" white man. The same moral righteousness here, in this country, being used as a method of control of an enslaved people. I'm trying to work this out in my own mind as I write -- how pure were the native religious beliefs of the people when they were brought here? How many of them found Christianity to be not so foreign? I need to check the timelines. Islam was also widespread in Africa. Facts gathered, I think this relationship requires more reflection. I will come back to it.

The hardest part of reading The River Between is maintaining objectivity. I think, for understanding, it's necessary to view what was rather than what I feel about what was. As tolerant as I believe myself to be, I'm seeing that it isn't so in the reading of this book. The issue of circumcision is repulsive to me, and not only female circumcision. The description of the ritual for young men is, in my realm of experience, barbaric, and I do believe I know something of the barbaric. I'm trying, though. I am truly trying.

I'm very near the end of TRB, and I hope to finish it before day's end. Then, perhaps, I can begin to discuss it in literary and philosophical terms, and hopefully then, with some sort of objectivity.

Till later...

Exam, and Beginning African Literature

Entry #15
Work: Final Thoughts on Nō
and Ngũnĩ Wa Thiong'o, The River Between

Tuesday brings the first exam, first midterm of the semester. I will meet with Dr. McCarthy tomorrow morning, and in reviewing the study guide, I see my questions will be many. Keeping track of details has never been my strong point, but I will do my best.

Regarding Nō, I have had some handwritten notes jotted down that I have yet to flesh out here--just a bit more of my rebellion. This idea of the form being primary and that the art would appear where the form was correct -- this is something that makes me cringe every time I read perfectly rhymed, perfectly metered lines of verse that are absolutely atrocious. Like Hallmark cards. Perhaps I'm not disciplined or perhaps I just do not appreciate the idea of boundaries, but in writing, either prose or poetry, I want to break the rules. I like things that break the rules.

And when I have thoughts like this, I have to remember the vision of chaos while meditating and how beautiful and ordered it really was. It was a long time ago (and a long story to tell, if I ever really could) that I saw what I still don't have adequate words to describe, and it was everything I want my free verse to be (or have potential to be) but still possessed, at least upon years of reflection, some sort of framework that kept it within bounds of being.

I digress.

I could not understand what art could emerge within such a strict form. The stage in Nō is identical in each play. The backdrop never changes. Each character and actor has a specific role without much variation. How could art possibly emerge under the thumb of these dictates? It's oppression! I thought. And yet...would we still read it if it was any other way? Would Nō have survived? I doubt it. It survived because of the form, not necessarily because of the art.

I've been reading too much of Bradbury and his charge to aim for truth, not popularity, not literary acclaim, but merely truth, and if there is enough life in the truth, the art will emerge. Perhaps Nō is not so terribly different. This is not 1400 A.D., and in 1400 A.D. perhaps discipline was more important. And, again perhaps, maybe we could possibly benefit from more of the same today. And maybe it's just ego that the artist today feels that s/he is beyond discipline.

I am tired, and it's been a long week of pain and frustration with pain, so I will end this with a few thoughts on The River Between.

I wasn't sure, when beginning it, if I would be able to involve myself in the story. And then, after getting so far, I questioned whether I had the stomach to read it. That's been an issue with some movies and television shows; I can't stand violence, and the coming-of-age circumcision rites in The River... strikes me as very violent. However, during the reading, I have discovered something. I'm only at about the mid-way point, not having the concentration to read long at any one sitting, and I'm detecting a subtext of mother-religion. It's mentioned in the conversation between W & his father, and if it's not brought to the surface by the end of the tale, I think I will write my paper on it. If I choose to, however, I think I'll have to ask Dr. McCarthy if I can expand the paper a bit beyond five pages. Being economical with words is not my strong suit (even more so than ability to remember details).

Till later...

A Woman Scorned

Entry #14
Work: Japanese Nō Drama
Kinuta -- The Fulling Block

Another wrongful clinging theme: woman, in her clinging to the hurt and hate of abandonment, rages even on the side of death for that which she has lost. The introduction to the play is very helpful, though I don't see how the play could be deemed complete with only the first part, as Tyler indicates is believed by many critics. There is no release without the second part. I think back about Ray Bradbury's advice to the writer: sicken me not without leading me to the ship's rail. Zeami does that when he allows the ghost to face her husband, or vice versa. No one wants to think a spirit is doomed to hell, and by facing her husband, there is a sense of transcendence.

On to the next play...

Till later...

Some fragments of conversation...

Entry #13
Work: Japanese Nō Dramas

Last night, I had the pleasure of speaking with my friend, Delbert, about Japanese Nō (or Noh, as he expresses it). He taught the discipline to drama students and actually went so far as to consider going to Japan himself to more closely experience it.

He characterized the performance as factual for the Japanese -- that when they see a nō character upon the stage, they truly believe they are seeing a ghost of the actual person. He related the meditation state that a shite must find before a performance so that he may truly be in character, become the character. I wish I had taken a tape recorder because, though we were talking first in a cold parking lot and then in a crowded pizza parlor, what I sensed from him was an intensity and a passion about the art that I could not convey with mere words here. I would have to transcribe his comments, as well as his body language in order to do it justice.

If one were to meet Delbert and not know his background, it wouldn't take too long before theater would be the first guess, and it wouldn't have much to do with luck, either. He erupted into spontaneous nō movements several times, and I was struck how closely I could identify them with the film we watched in class. We made a friendly pact to grab tickets if any plays were performed nearby.

One last thing: he mentioned that the intensity of the performance is often too much for the acting student to handle. Likewise, even the audience is deeply affected by it. This I can believe just from the few minutes of viewing in the classroom on a small television with poor sound. I really hope that we can follow through on the pact.

On to the rest of the plays, which we will be discussing on Tuesday...

Till later...

Two days of Reading, Finally Posted

I'm playing catch-up on actually posting my posts:

18 February 2007
Entry #11
Work: Japanese Nō Dramas

Plays/Pages Assigned for First Class:
General Introduction
Funa Benkei -- Benkei Aboard Ship
Kantan
Matsukaze -- Pining Wind

The introduction to Japanese Nō Dramas is a little confusing to follow, most likely because of the Japanese names and terms and necessary historical information included. My eyes tend to skim across those hard syllables requiring that I do a lot of back peddling when I realize that in order to understand a term further along in the text, I need to have absorbed one that came before.

My inner rebel soon reared her head when I read the line (under "Discussion of theme and meaning"), "Although nō plays are works of art, not religious or poetic treatises, they evoke important religious or poetic themes" (5). My instinct tells me that what is called art (the aesthetic--beauty, wonder and awe for its own sake) is essentially the same though occurring on a higher plane than that which is called religion, and that which is called poetry can exist on either plane. But that's just me pitching a fit before getting started.

My second resistance to nō is the small corner that women occupy in the discipline. Again, it's my own rebellion.

As a writer, I was intrigued by the description of "Persons speaking for one another; inconsistencies of grammatical person" as a narrative technique. I imagine a masked face with lips that do not move, disembodied voice coming from somewhere else. Or a half-mad actor, speaking of himself as he acts. The effect must have been extraordinarily eerie.

(Added later:)
*Dr. McCarthy explained in a later class that this can sometimes occur because a character is involved in a dance and require that the chorus or another person speak for him or her, though now I will say, after having read a number of the plays, that it is a little unnerving to hear a speaker suddenly begin speaking in the third person. My youngest son does that--he even has a myspace profile as "the3rdperson"--and if it will heighten the drama at the dinner table, I would imagine, masked & in elaborate dress, it would most definitely be effectively dramatic on the stage.*

In the play, Benkei Aboard Ship, I don't quite understand the power that Benkei seems to have over Yoshitsune. Yoshitsune is played by a kokata, as the introduction explains, portraying him as small and perhaps vulnerable. He allows Benkei to make the decision (attributed to him) to turn back Shizuka, his lover, who is very passionate in her love and desire to remain with Yoshitsune. But Yoshitsune and Shizuka never come together to discuss the news delivered by Benkei. He is the liaison throughout. I'm not sure if this dispatching of Shizuku is too trivial a matter for him to handle (She obviously thinks it's a big deal) or that his faithful servant is more wise in these matters (though too humble or knows his place too well to admit responsibility in the decision).

He surely lacks no power of decision in the second part as he slays the evil spirit of Tomomori. His chorus proclaims him "wholly untroubled"(94), and he has asked, "what harm could [evil spirits] possibly do?" (93) How the first part and the second part relate to each other, I'm not quite sure. Perhaps it is a testament to Benkei's wisdom that a woman should not have been present at such a violent moment, though Yoshistune seemed to have the situation in hand.

Kantan offered a bit more meat--in my opinion. To sleep on the magic pillow, to see that a life of riches and power pass away as though in a dream ("frittered away") and to be satisfied that he has seen what he came to see and can now return home is more of an answer than many who seek ever find. Oh, to have such a pillow!

I do question one thing, however. In his first speech, Rosei says, "Kantan, once simply a name,/lies before me, for I have arrived" (135), and I must wonder if "lies" is one of the pivot words that are mentioned in the introduction. Is what he sees in his dream upon the pillow a lie? Or is his journey a lie? His aspirations? *I will have to remember to ask Delbert or Dr. McCarthy about this.

Pining Wind is sad as hell. I can feel the dampness of saltwater-soaked and tear-stained sleeves. It seems the sun never shines on the shores of Suma, or it didn't in my imagination in the time it took me to read and reflect on the play. The music is sad (in my imagination), the beach is cold, and the landscape is dreary. Again, my rebellious inner child rears her head while reading the introduction and Tyler states, authoritatively, that "[Pining Wind's] yearing for Yukihira has nothing to do with transcendence. It is the quintessence of human love" (189). Perhaps this is true, but I prefer to interpret in my own way, from my own experience.

(Added later:)
*After speaking to Dr. McCarthy and spending some more time in reflection (in a non-rebellious state), I have come to agree with Tyler, though I think it's all the more reason to deem this a horribly depressing play. Love stinks and all that--and one who has spiritual aspirations, who desires transcendence and persists in clinging to the past, to that which is lost, is horribly stuck. And that may very well be why it's called "the human condition."

*sigh**

Till later...


21 February 2007
Entry #12
Work: Japanese Nō Dramas

Plays Assigned for Second Class:
Atsumori
Aya no tsuzumi -- The Damask Drum
Chikubu-shima
Sumida-gawa -- The Sumida River

I'm tired, so I will save any long commentary for later.

Again, though I know that Japan is a beautiful country, I have a cold feeling as I read these plays. They have a very spare feeling. Perhaps it's just the art form. Perhaps its the culture or the time.

Atsumori is another lonely play. Boy, left behind, retrieving his beloved flute, and big bad barbarian warrior strikes him down, sees the brutality of his actions (I can almost see Frankenstein carrying the poor, drowned little girl), and in repentence, changes his name and devotes his life to helping the spirit find freedom. The boy, attached to the flute. The man, attached to his guilt. The two of them at the end, cleaving unto each other, a yin and yang and a perfect balance for each other. So, even though a young boy is beheaded (after all, it was an act of mercy, as Kumagai did not trust the other murderous warriors to accept the responsibility for the spirit of Atsumori), a happy ending was received by all!

The Damask Drum got under my skin. Problems on both sides: The Old Man, so foolish to think that he could recieve the love of the Consort, and the Consort, so insensitive to the feelings of a foolish old man to hang a drum that she knew would not require her to fulfill her promise. He learned the hard lesson of being made a fool, and she learned the rath of a vengeful spirit scorned. Possession, whether by infatuation or by that of the self, closes one off from the spirit and invites sorrow.

I like the role of woman in Chikubu-shima, even in the knowledge that women probably came nowhere near a production of the play. They are still treated with reverence, and that sits well with me. And the treasures--if I understand rightly, they are comprised of a key, a rosary and a bamboo tree. They are spiritual and symbolic treasures, much like the painted pine on the back of the stage. And I like that.

I could say much about The Sumida River, but it seems that much has already been said about it from reading the introduction. The grief of the mother, as she realizes that the child under the mound is her own, is wrenching. The tension is palpable. My heart felt broken along with hers as I read.

While reading the play itself, I was wishing that I knew more about Japanese poetry. I most enjoyed the chanting at the end and could hear it resonating in my mind as the final scene came to a close. Though it is not clear that the mother has found peace at the end--after all, she has had but a moment to feel the hope turned into grief--I found myself praying that she had.

Till later...

Comedy in The Frogs

Entry #10
Work: The Frogs by Aristophanes

Just some random thoughts on The Frogs...

I've thought about the interaction between Xanthias and Dionysus. There were elements that felt familiar to me, and not until I was drifting off to sleep last night did it occur to me what they were.

Their relationship is a common theme in cinematic comedy. It's the "smart butler, dumb master" bit. The example that springs to mind is the butler, Dobson (played by John Gielgud) and Dudley Moore in Arthur. There are variations which mimic this dynamic more closely where the servant is the trickster or the true master of cynicism, but Arthur will do just fine. Dobson is obviously more intelligent than the man he serves. It begs the question -- how does a god such as Dionysus find himself so often the foolish one?

Also, the clothing switch when they arrive at the inn is reminiscent of a Marx Brothers skit. Or a Three Stooges skit. Or some other vaudeville slap-stick comedy. One just knows, in the reading, that this identity shift is not going to benefit Dionysus. He's portrayed as such a buffoon that it must turn out badly.

As I said, random thoughts. "Turning the tables" seems to be the primary comedic device in The Frogs, and though it is humorous, I have to say that after reading first The Bacchae, I must say I felt sorry for the treatment of Euripides by Aristophanes.

That being said, I'm happy that I'm finally beginning to place these Greek authors into a historical context.

Till later...