Choose

I've taken a bit of a hiatus from this blog, and now I'm returning with an uncharacteristically personal post.

I applied to grad school this winter, and most of the schools to which I applied have sent me their verdicts. Most of them are rejections. Despite the PhD path essentially eroding beneath my feet, I have a myriad of chioces in front of me.

This is a strange time, and I'm trying to capture it. Since Jarrod and I set off for Buffalo last Friday afternoon, I have been dwelling with the surreality of making decisions that will significantly impact my future. It is a poltergeist that simply stares at me, waiting for me to choose. I stare back, searching for words to explain myself.

At this time last year, I was so enthusiastic about academia. I had the unfounded confidence of a college senior, still ensconced in the certainty of a few more weeks of undergraduate education. That I would continue my education on the graduate level was an unrefutable truth in my mind.

"What are you doing now?"

That question had followed me for the first two months or so after graduation, and while it was repeated ad nauseum, I had an acceptable answer: "I'm applying to grad school."

"What have you been up to since graduation?" The question re-surfaced in an unlikely place, a movie theater in Worcester. I was there with two friends from college, and we ran into another Assumption graduate. And this time, I didn't have an easy, terse answer. I hadalready applied, and all of the schools I had heard from at that point had rejected me. I couldn't say "grad school," so I said, "Substitute teaching."

"Oh, how do you like it?"
This fellow alumna is a middle school teacher, and we were once in the same pre-practicum education seminar. I quit the concentration after a week and felt liberated, and certain that I would never resort to teaching high school. I would teach college.

"I hate it," I said with a laugh, and absolute sincerity.
It's been a rough school year, with shockingly bad behavior from the students and lack of support from other teachers and administrators.

But I don't hate teaching. I applied for PhD programs because I love literature and I want to teach it. I would still like to teach it to college students who share the same enthusiasm for writing and reading, rather than trying to generate it amongst teenagers in a high school, but it's infinitely better than being trapped in a cubicle, doing work that I find mindless and meaningless. Teaching is an option again. But on my terms this time, not the version of teaching set forth by a college education department or by disconcertingly placid elementary school principals who are horrified that a substitute would dare yell at a group of out-of-control first graders.

There is no path before me; I have to make my own. I am blessed, though, to not have to make it alone, because I have Jarrod. And while I still feel that uncanniness shadowing me, I know that I have the power to create a life that will be fulfilling, challenging, rewarding, and meaninful. A job cannot do that. Grad school cannot do that.

Only I can.

Madness? This is Rome!

In the past couple of days, I've taken a break from Swann's Way and started re-reading Ovid's Metamorphoses. Although I want to study 20th/21st century British literature in grad school, I love mythology, legends, and folklore. So I periodically return to classical literature, epic poetry, and ancient legends.

The unifying motif of the Metamorphoses is, of course, transformation; Juno's jealous rage causes her to take revenge on Io and change her into a cow; Echo's unrequited love for Narcissus dwindles her to nothing more than a voice; a nymph's grief dissolves her into water. Ovid's work is often viewed as less "serious" than other Roman epics like the Aeneid, but his stories construct a psychology of the passions.

In the grips of their passions, characters are frequently changed into animals and plants, becoming sub-human, irrational or insensate beings. Ovid appears to uphold the binary opposition between emotion and rationality; the fits of passion are sudden, impuslive, and irrational, often leading to uncharacteristic behavior. But the individual is not expected to purge himself completely of all passion; Ovid presents them as natural, irrascible forces which everyone must confront, including the gods. For example, Jove criticizes Pluto's impulsive abduction of the girl Proserpina, but he reasons with the girl's mother, Ceres, that the god's actions were unthinking, instinctive, and therefore more forgiveable. He did not premeditate the abduction. There was no malice in his intentions, because he did not have any intentions; he was overtaken by passion. He lost his rational capacity under the influence of love and desire; even a god is helpless to overcome that.

Ironically, Venus, the goddess of love, is primarily motivated by pride; she instructed Cupid to fire his arrows at Pluto because of her desire for power over the other gods, and her anger with the virgin goddesses Minerva and Diana, whose rejection of love and sexuality constitutes a "revolt" in Venus' mind. Yet, this quest for domination accompanies her sense of duty; she will perform her task and inspire love, even if it leads to dischord (as it did here between Ceres and most of Italy, on which she took her revenge because the earth opened up and swallowed Pluto and Proserpina).

Similarly, Juno's punishment of Jove's (often unwilling) mistresses is just as fueled by her pride in her reputation as it is jealousy; she is mighty Juno, the queen of heaven, and any offender must pay dearly for daring to cross her. Juno is terribly jealous of Ino for having conceived a child with Jove, but she is even more jealous of the son of their union, Bacchus: "My rival bears a child, and he has power / To transform sailors, give the flesh of a son / For his mother to tear to pieces, turn the daughters / of Minyas into bats. and what can Juno / Do beyond weeping at insults unavenged? / Is that enough? Is that my only power?" (Ovid, Book IV, lines 423-428). Juno takes her revenge by deigning to enter the underworld and seeking the assistance of the Furies to drive Ino mad. Her own desire for revenge is irrational; Ino cannot be held responsible for the power of her son. Juno's pride and anger blind her to the injustice of her own actions, her misplaced anger and vengeance, even though Juno represents justice. Diana is also unjust in preserving her honor; a man accidentally sees her naked, and she punishes his inadvertant spying by changing him into a beast. And even Minerva stoops to seek Envy's assistance in enacting revenge. The passions, even among gods, lead them to break their character, even as they strive to uphold their reputations.

Bacchus is a common culprit for the worst and most animalistic madness. During Ovid's time, Bacchanalia (the festivals celebrating Bacchus) were officially illegal, but the cult continued to practice underground. Book IV is largely devoted to stories centering on these frenzied rituals of drink and dance, which act as agents of transformation. Ovid seems to view the Bacchanalia as distractions to an individual's proper vocation, as evidenced in the story of Pentheus. While everyone else indulged in ecstatic festivities, Pentheus was repulsed by their dereliction of duty: "What lunacy is this, oh sons of Mars, / Sons of the serpent's teeth, that dulls your wits? / ... / my fine young peers, who used to carry / Spears once, not wands, do you think it decent of you / To stick your heads through garlands, not in helmets?" (Ovid III. 545-547). Rather than being honorable warriors, rational beings, and responsible citizens, they have all given in to madness and superstition (symbolized by the wands). From Pentheus' view, they ought to be ashamed of themselves and hold their duty to their country higher than their obligations to this questionable god.

In Book IV, Ovid opposes servants of Bacchus with servants of Minerva. A group of women, the daughters of Minyas, decline to join in the orgies honoring Bacchus and spend the day weaving and telling tales instead. They "worship a better goddess, Pallas," (Minerva) and will not recognize the divinity of the wine god (Ovid IV.42). Their tales criticize uncontrolled passion-- the feud between two families that led to the senseless deaths of Pyramus and Thisbe, the jealousy of Clytie and Apollo's excessive preference for Leucothoe, etc. Rationalism is the enemy of Bacchus, and the daughters are punished for their transgression when Bacchus transforms them into bats, which symbolize the occult (in another story, Bacchus changes another irreligious individual into a screech owl, an omen of death). Minerva may be the better goddess, but she cannot defeat the madness that abounds, for Bacchus gets his revenge and expands his dominion across Greece, into Egypt, and beyond. I need to do more research on Rome under Augustus, but this could very well be a criticism of Roman society.

The passions come upon characters in a flash, but the repercussions of acting on those passions are permanent. The effects are not always negative; a few are elevated to godhood, or taken out of a dangerous situation and placed among the stars as a constellation. Other transformations reveal the true nature of an individual, like the blood-thirsty Lycaon's metamorphosis into a wolf. Ovid offers a nuanced view of the effects of strong emotion, with a wide array of consequences for the ways individuals confront these forces within them.

Taboos

"French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent twenty years writing a book almost no one reads."
Frank (Steve Carell) on Marcel Proust, Little Miss Sunshine, 2006

I have largely ignored the autobiographical aspect of In Search of Lost Time, and while Little Miss Sunshine is far from an authority on Marcel Proust, I quoted Frank here because he is a gay character who uses Proust's homosexuality as a reason he was a "total loser." Certainly, Frank's description is tongue-in-cheek and has a self-deprecating air, but it also indicates the otherness of homosexuality in any conversation about human relationships and love. In Swann's Way, heterosexuality is central (the narrator, his parents, and Charles Swann are all heterosexual), and when homosexuality appears in the novel, it is on the margins, it is other, a perversion.

Proust was not exclusively homosexual; he carried on a few affairs with women, although his most intense relationships were with men and appears to have strongly preferred young men. By 1906, he was open about his unconventional sexuality, but he continued to be tormented by his sexual identity. He hid his homosexuality while his parents were alive, and his affairs were often tortured, brief, or unrequited.

There are two prominent characters who are not strictly heterosexual in the first two chapters of Swann's Way. Mademoiselle Vinteuil carries on a lesbian affair, partly in rebellion against her father, and Odette admits to several sexual liaisons with other women. In both instances, homosexuality is presented as a perversion and an indication of moral decay; Mademoiselle Vinteuil's affair is widely held responsible for her father's death, and she and her lover mock Mr. Vinteuil shortly after his death. Similarly, Odette's lesbian affairs are evidence of her outrageous, uncontrollable sexuality. He does not merely object to her promiscuity and betrayal of his trust, but this particular sexual transgression of relationships with other women. For both Mademoiselle Vinteuil and Odette, their lesbian affairs imply their complete lack of sexual morality. Odette's many infidelities were painful enough to Swann, but her homosexual affairs shock and offend him most of all; he forgave her loose morals (he knew from their first meeting that she was a courtesan) when men were the object of her seductions, and he even forgave her liaisons with his acquaintances. But her affairs with women were utterly unfathomable to Swann, and they force him to recognize her wild lifestyle, her burgeoning sexuality that, he now fears, lacks all boundaries.

But why would Proust present homosexuality in such a negative light? He struggled to accept his own homosexual longings, so some of this could be internalized prejudice. In early 20th century France, homosexuality was so far outside the norms of accepted sexual practices that it also provides a convenient indicator of Odette's outrageousness, her extreme unconventionality and separation from the society Swann had hitherto frequented. It is also important to note that, in any form, heterosexual or homosexual, love is morally threatening. In the beginning of "Swann in Love," the narrator observes that love is reserved for the idle rich, and Swann's voluptuous wallowing in the emotions and desires aroused by Odette indicate the complete lack of duties and responsibilities in his life. Swann can afford to live for love alone, and his moral character is degraded because of it. Although love can also provide moments of transcendence and ecstatic joy, it also humiliates and disgraces the lover, through jealousy, obsession, and indulgence of fantasy. Swann is not degraded solely because Odette is a sexual deviant, but because he seeks to control her sexuality.

The lesbian affairs present a threat to male dominance; part of Mademoiselle Vinteuil's attraction to her lover is the horror it caused her father and polite bourgeois society (although she seems embarrassed at the same time), and Odette's homosexual affairs designate her radical independence, to the point of alienation, from Swann. I think part of why Swann is so scandalized by Odette's homosexual activities is due to the fact that this is a world in which he holds no place. Proust also experienced consuming jealousy and a sense of deep betrayal when he discovered that one of his male lovers had cheated on him with women, and I think that this incomprehension of and separation from the sexuality of one's partner make Odette's lesbian infidelities so painful to Swann. They present the ultimate obstacle to masculine understanding of female sexuality, which is already ominously mysterious to the male characters of Swann's Way.

I'm still perplexed as to why Proust would choose to present homosexuality only among women; this would seem to be the least familiar form of sexuality to Proust. In Search of Lost Time is obviously not autobiography, and the narrator is not Proust, but it's still curious why, in a story that has so far presented a wide range of sexual and romantic relaionships, male homosexuality is completely absent, not even implied. The narrator, however, inhabits a strongly feminine world; he is extremely close with his mother, his aunts, and his grandmother, he is fascinated by Gilberte Swann and Madame de Guermantes, he dreams about actresses and women who will reveal the secrets of love and life to him. Swann is the most prominent male figure in the narrator's life at Combray, and he is also deeply encsonced in a feminine atmosphere. As such, there is a clearer portrait, and wider range, of feminine sexuality than masculine; as a boy, the world of men is still somewhat remote from the narrator, represented in his distant relationship with his father and grandfather. He is obviously an outsider to the feminine realm, but he can observe it more easily than the activities reserved for men; he is still dependent on his mother and spends most of his day in the company of women. He is fascinated by the women he encounters and attempts to capture something of their consciousness, to comprehend what they feel and form images of their private lives, of which he can only catch a glimpse. Sexuality is by no means the only preoccupation; the narrator is just as intrigued by Gilberte's dinners with Bergote as he is by Mademoiselle Vinteuil's affiar. But it is a significant part of life, and the narrator is not blind to that; he is losing some of that childish innocence, that complete ignorance of love and sexuality as his own capacities for both are developing. Swann's Way presents a wide variety of the forms of sexuality and romance: Swann's torrid affair with Odette, the idealized medieval romance of the Guermantes line, lesbian encounters, the perpetual maidenhood of his aunts, his parents' marriage, his uncle's proclivity for actresses and women of ill-repute. These forms of sexuality and love are all emerging before the narrator's eyes and becoming clearer in his consciousness, and as a curious, sensitive person, his narrative is an attempt to comprehend it.