Frederick Douglass’ short novel, The Heroic Slave (1853), used American nostalgia as references to Americanize the slaves. Douglass also uses the references to the American Revolution and the Forefathers to establish motive for the slave rebellion and the abolition movement. The Forefathers and slaves were fighting for the same thing: liberty. Douglass’ hero is named after two Forefathers of the Constitution; James Madison and George Washington. The story takes place in Virginia, birthplace of the aforementioned. The description of the tavern that Mr. Listwell, the abolitionist in the fictional account, visits is used to parallel the United States at that time.

Slavery was legal in the South, an issue the South was willing to secede from the nation over. Douglass uses the description of the dilapidated tavern as a metaphor for the plight in America. Black Americans were treated poorly; beaten, lashed, raped, and killed. If a slave was to escape, or even ponder escaping, that “rascal” would be flogged. America was in the middle of a moral crisis. Many Americans felt they were superior to African Americans and Native Americans. The nation had rotted away, from the very foundation the country was built on, and Douglass relates that with the decayed building.

“…there stands a somewhat ancient and famous public tavern, quite notorious in its better days… This old rookery, the nucleus of all sorts of birds, mostly those of ill omen, has, like everything else peculiar to Virginia, lost much of its ancient consequence and splendor…”

Douglass is using Virginia as a means to describe the United States. This is the state the great men of the past were born; here is where they lived and owned slaves themselves. And there are laws outlawing men to aid in the rescue and freedom of captured slaves, who are forced to work for a white man, because the whites have a superiority complex. Madison Washington was a slave tired of the wretched life he was forced to fight through. The glorification of the slave can be seen with the language Madison uses. Douglass gives the racist characters poor English dialect to combat the stereotype of the Black Americans. Furthermore, Madison speaks not only well and eloquent, but proper and polite, shocking many of his acquaintances. This is the reason Mr. Listwell, overhearing Madison’s soliloquy, stayed because he was intrigued by such voice and character.

“The speech of Madison rung through the chambers of his soul, and vibrated through his entire frame.”

Mr. Listwell is so moved by the divulgence, he instantly converts to an abolitionist, a truly sentimental moment during this hate-filled time period.

“Here is indeed a man…guilty of no crime but the color of his skin… From this hour I am an abolitionist. I have seen enough and heard enough…”

When Tom Grant threatened Madison with his life, Madison did not attack as he could have as he pointed out to Tom Grant, but instead calmly, but sternly, replied:

“Sir…your life is in my hands… You call me a black murderer. I am not a murderer. God is my witness that LIBERTY, not malice, is a motive for this night’s work… We have struck for our freedom, and if a true man’s heart be in you, you will honor us for the deed. We have done that which you applaud your fathers for doing, and if we are murderers, so are they.”

Who thinks of the patriots as “murderers”? Douglas refers to the founders of the United States and claims that the freedom the Black Slaves and abolitionists were fighting for, is as American as the freedom the Forefathers fought for.

Madison Washington’s soliloquy on how the African Americans were being treated, sold and traded as property, spills out emotions that “captures” Mr. Listwell’s heart. Madison speaks of the rights of the free, the freedoms the white American heroes worked hard to accomplish for all men, and the freedoms the slaves were yearning.

“If I get clear, (as something tells me I shall,) liberty, the inalienable birth-right of every man, precious and priceless, will be mine. My resolution is fixed. I shall be free.”

Over one hundred years later on the steps of the Washington Monument, a great American declared: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty. We are free at last!”

After reading James Fenimore Cooper’s novel, Last of the Mohicans, the excerpt by William Apess’ was a breath of fresh air. James Fenimore Cooper may have not have been a racist, but he certainly didn’t help to end discrimination against the Red Men, the Native Americans. Apess’ point of view as the inflicted, rather the oppressor, helped display the insights of the minority, and their interpretation of the discrimination.

Cooper describes the Indians in his novel as bloodthirsty cannibals. William Apess, a Christian Pequot Indian, responded to such fallacies with his piece, An Indian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man, which was published in 1833.

Apess used several methods to get to the white people’s soul. One was guilt, which he laid on pretty heavy, and another being bible rhetoric. The white man claimed to follow the bible explicitly, laying claims to be righteous in doing so, yet Apess revealed the bible shuns racism, and discrimination of any kind.

“Let your love be without dissimulation. See that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently.” (1 Peter 1.22)

“If any man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar.” (1 John 4.20)

“He who loveth God loveth his brother also.” (1 John 4.21)

Here William Apess is using the white-man’s gospel against them. The bible says if you do not love one another, then you are not following God. Apess is hoping this will create “self-doubt” within the white man, due to their unjust and cruel acts.

Apess uses color to describe the actions of the white man. More specifically, Apess uses the color “black” as a metaphor in many occasions.

“…are leaders a most unrighteous, unbecoming, and impure black principle…”

Here, Apess uses the color black to describe the evilness and wrongdoing of the nation’s principles, which were strongly held by the leaders.

“…but merely placing before you the black inconsistency that you place before me – which is ten times blacker than any skin you will find in the universe.”

Once again, Apess uses the word “black,” first to describe the evil-doings of the white-man, and then contrasts it with the “black” skin color, which the white-man found so heinous.

My personal favorite use of color by Apess is in the ‘national crimes’ paragraph. Apess asks the reader to imagine if all races had their national crimes written upon it, with black ink of course, whose would be darker? Hand’s down, it would be the white-man. Apess feels that the reader will realize the white-man’s travesty of a civil society.

Apess doesn’t stop there though. He brings to light the skin color of Jesus of Nazareth, which is most certainly not white. He then asks… “Now, if the Lord Jesus Christ, who is counted by all to be a Jew – and it is well known that the Jews are a colored people … and if he should appear among us, would he not be shut out of doors by many, very quickly?”

I think this question will get to the reader. Apess suggests: Will you slam your door on Jesus because of his skin color? And for those who were white devout Christians, which was the intended audience, Apess gets to them right here.

In conclusion, Apess may have not attended this piece to be a response to Cooper’s novel, but he uses writing as a forum to fight back against the white-man, who Apess allows us to remember to be the conquerors who stole the continent from it’s rightful owners.

Works Cited:
William Apess; An Indian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man; Our Own Ground: The Complete Writings of William Apess, 1992.
Dr. Gibson Diaz; ETS 116, U.S. Literary History; Lecture, 2/4/00.

Chris Matthews is a political insider; he has seen the game played. Matthews took a lot of notes when he worked as an aide for former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, and collaborated his works, creating an inside look at the game, and the rules politics is played by. When Matthews’ confided to a member of the House of Representatives on the book he was writing, the listener replied, “Why do you want to go and give them away?”

Hardball‘s purpose was to unveil “the enduring human truths in the rules that politicians play by.” Chris Matthews lists the rules of politics, and explains how each one is important, and examples of the rules implementations.

There are a handful of basic rules to the game of politics, and Chris Matthews gives them all. The first is: “It’s not who you know; it’s who you get to know.” This rule was pioneered by President Lyndon B. Johnson. When the young pol (the short name Chris Matthews gives politicians) arrived in Washington, he sets out to meet everyone as fast as possible. The future President’s strategy worked. Within months of arrival, LBJ was elected Speaker of the “Little Congress,” the organization of House staff assistants. Lyndon Johnson made his rise to fame at the retail level, making each and everybody’s concern an issue. Jack Brooks, a Texas congressman and a friend to LBJ, knew quite well of the “Johnson treatment.”

“Lyndon Johnson would convince you that your concern, no matter how small it might seem to other people, was the most important thing in the world to Lyndon Johnson.”

The Great Retailer, as President Johnson soon to became known as, used his audience to create alliances. He knew the House republican from Arizona was not interested in the lakes of Minnesota, and used his knowledge and senses to use political retailing as a means to swing votes in Congress.

Similarly, this is where John F. Kennedy failed in the White House. Kennedy used his good looks and his television coverage to get elected. JFK was a “dashing wholesaler” but fell short on Capitol Hill, where the Great Retailer would get his way.

“Behind those vaunted closed doors lies not only the paraphernalia of power but a distinctive language, which I myself have learned to speak. It is a world of tough old alliances, Gothic revenge and crafty deal-making, but also of marvelous state-of-the-art tactics such as spin and positioning.”

No one perfected the maneuver of positioning as well as man they called “The Great Communicator,” President Ronald Reagan. One example of this maneuver was during his press conferences. Ronald Reagan always seemed to know the name of the reporters, calling them out on a first-name basis. For people watching at home, or the press corps at the White House that day, they saw a President that acted as a regular guy. The reason this conception took place was because the President had a seating chart, and spent hours learning it. When a reporter stood up to ask a question, the President would call out, “Pat!” The reporter, stunned that that the President knew his name, was not going to attempt anything “tricky” at that moment.

Furthermore, the “Great Communicator” used another ploy during his annual State of the Union addresses. The former actor took advantage of the new technology that was available in the high-flying eighties; in specific, the TelePrompTer. For viewers at home, the President spoke eloquently, flawlessly, and to both sides of the audience. These great speeches were attainable due to the two TelePrompTers located on the floor of the Capitol. Only on wide shots were the well-spaced glass plates visible to viewers. However on the television screen, they looked like bullet-proof security shields.

The impact of Chris Matthews book is larger than expected, at least to him: “…I had no idea this book would become a classic, that many hard-nosed politicians would employ it as their bible… that the word “hardball” itself would so penetrate the country’s vocabulary.”

The truth of the matter is this: politics is a game. And like all games, there are rules. You follow the rules, and you’ll do fine, but when the game gets tough, it’s only those who can play hardball that will survive… reelection.

Dear Teacher,

For my book, Hardball, by Chris Matthews, the subject is the game of politics, and how it is played. The thesis is that all politicians play this and though the citizens may not notice this fact, that’s just one part of the game. The author has many examples of all the parts of the game varying from Reagan’s positioning to Lyndon Johnson’s ability to speak to one person at a time, called retailing. The audience for this intriguing book is aspiring politicians, or those who want to learn the rules of politics. Everytime I see a press conference or a campaign rally, I see these rules in action. The mood is analytical. Chris Matthews looks behind every move a politician makes. The purpose is to reveal the game. As he worked in Washington he learned the in’s and out’s and made a book of it. A great book. For Spring Break, I’m going home and writing my critical essay.

Thanks,

Jeffrey B. Wisniewski

Dear Teacher:

One of my other classes is ETS 116: American Literary History. For this class, we have read: Last of the Mohicans, by James Fenimore Cooper, Hope Leslie by Catherine Maria Sedgwick, and we have just finished A New Home, Who’ll Follow, by Kirkland.

I hated these books. They are so boring. They were all written in the 1830’s when American writers were trying to establish a cultural aspect in America. The result: British writing; I hate British writing. That’s why I am so glad to be reading Hardball by Chris Matthews for this class. I feel it will be much more rewarding. I will need to be writing several essays for the books stated above.

In MAT 517, Partial Differential Equations and Fourier Series, we are learning how to prove the laws of integration.

Jeffrey B. Wisniewski

Dear Teacher:

Overall, I thought that the valentine production project was useless. The few things I thought were effective to this course were the choosing of Audience. If you choose Senior Citizens, you don’t want a valentine with hip-hop lyrics, and so on, or is too tough to make for them. Same goes with the 8 year old boys or girls. You don’t want to put any “steamy” phrases on them. I though that my time could have be better spent solving dynamic equilibrium problems.

Thanks for the opportunities…

Jeffrey

Dear Teacher:

Writing 105 is a “fuzzy” memory for me. I was bed-stricken with mononucleosis for all of November, forcing me to take an Incomplete in the course. To get a grade, I had to read This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolfe, then watch the movie, and write about the differences between them. What I learned was that what is good for reading, is not always good for watching, thus the director will change the story a tad. I also learned that every movie needs a sex scene apparently. Earlier in that semester, when I was able to go to class, we read and discussed “The Things They Carried,” by an author I have forgotten, but works at SU. The novel was about the Vietnam Conflict. I remember the author – Tim O’Brien. This was during the “storyteller” portion of the class. I learned, or tried to, how to tell a story by grabbing listeners. Thank you.

Jeffrey B. Wisniewski

I feel that humans must possess free will, and must not accept any less than absolute free will. If free will isn’t what humans have, what is the point of living; it wouldn’t matter anyway since our futures are set. Radical free will is a possibility and should be the human’s goal.

I feel that the argument of free will coincides with the argument for God’s existence. If God exists, our free will is limited because God would know what would happen to us and we can not escape those inevitabilities. On the other hand, if God doesn’t exist, then free will is ours; not just free will, but absolute free will.

I feel that Compatibilists answer the problem these two dangling questions leave us, concluding that free will is compatible with law-governess. This argument satisfies my thoughts on free will. I feel that if humans did not have free will, they would go nuts. How would I be able to make decisions in life, if every time, I kept asking myself if that was the decision I was supposed to make? It wouldn’t matter anyway, if we didn’t have free will, because since the day we were born, everything we would do was planned out already.

Susan Wolf, an intelligent philosopher, has thrown in her arguments towards Compatibilism. She states crude compatibilism as an action is free just in case it stems from your own desires. This opens up many elements within the deep-self view.

The Compatibilist’s view greatly depends on the acceptance of the Sane Deep-self View. This states that an action is free just in case it stems from your desires and those desires are under the control of your deep-self, and your deep-self is sane. This view also entails that a person’s deep-self is sane if that person is properly connected to the world both normatively and cognitively. They must know the difference between right and wrong, and the difference between fact and fantasy.

The deep-self view is correct in pointing out that freedom and responsibility require humans to have distinctive types of control over our behavior. Precisely, “our actions need to be under the control of ourselves, and our superficial selves need to be under control of our deep selves.”¹

In order to be free and responsible, we need to be able to remove old desires and traits we see not needed. We need to revise ourselves, as Harry Frankfurt put it. This improving of ourselves is implicitly in the sane deep-self view. The sane deep-self view also implies that for us to be responsible for our actions, we have to be responsible for our selves. We must have the ability to evaluate ourselves sensibly and accurately, and have the ability to transform ourselves in response to our evaluation.

One problem with the Compatibilist’s view on free will is that they assume an objective standard of right and wrong. The problem lies in the fact that right and wrong are relative to individuals and customs within a culture. There is no “across the board” moral standard.

A second problem is that on the Sane Deep-Self View, no one will be responsible for any wrong doings, because no wrong doings will be free. This is due to the view that the only explanations for a wrong doing are that they had a wrong desire not under the control of their deep-self, or their deep-self is not sane.

The Compatibilist’s view creates yet another hindsight. This view develops a lack of moral responsibilities. If no one were morally responsible for their actions, we would not have any premise to punish such a person, because their act was against their will. This is where, I feel, the problem arises. At what point do determinism and indeterminism meet, if at all? There is a lot of gray in between the two; enough to create a view such as compatibilism.

In a world as uncertain as ours, with enough evil to wipe this planet out from under us, we can not take such a position when prosecuting such acts. Although a person might not be normatively or cognitively connected to the world, they were still prevalent to the society in which they intended to destroy. These people may not be morally responsible, but they still are physically responsible for their wrong-doings.

Susan Wolf analyzes that her view may be too closely connects sanity and being right about the world.

One response Susan Wolf mentions is that sanity is the ability cognitively and normatively to understand and appreciate the world. “According to our commonsense understandings, having this ability is one thing and exercising is another…”²

The sane deep-self view posed by Susan Wolf was not meant to answer all the philosophical problem emanated by the topics of free will and responsibility. If anything, this view highlights some of the practical and empirical problems, rather than attempting to answer such an intense question.

Another argument towards free will is the reasoning made from professional and amateur sports. Are the outcomes of these contests really predetermined? Why would one actually put an effort into such an event if the effort would not play a part in the outcome? This reasoning makes the Compatibilism argument favored in my mind. If the world is deterministic, there has to be some leeway made towards partial free will in the argument of sporting events, for example.

A further argument I will implement in my discussion of free will is based on the field of medicine. Are these doctors and nurses messing up the “system” God has put forth for us? It would seem that they are since the day the victims were born, they were to die on that day, yet these souls have helped them to survive. Are these professions even necessary? God knows when it is our time, and if it’s not, won’t our determined future already keep us from becoming distinct.

I, for one, can not except the view of determinism. If we weren’t really free, would we be arguing against it? There would be no reason to. But because we are free, we feel an urge to find out more about this world, and the meaning of it all, when it may just be we are looking too hard. I will have to conclude that I agree with most of what Susan Wolf has to offer us. She seems to understand that the majority of people think that the world is deterministic, and she found a layer beyond that. Free will exists. We have free will.

1,2: Susan Wolf, Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility

SUBJECT: Dawkin, the man with a hand up his sleeve

After reading this fine article, I had to go downstairs and grab a bite to eat. I also had a glass of water.

There is no god. Don’t scald or castrate me for this assertion. Humans were monkeys as butterflies were caterpillars. No bones about it. Evolution is the reason we walk on two feet and communicate with words. The people back in the day were not so bright; did they even have school? I don’t think so. They could not explain their own surroundings so they developed a GOD. They looked at him for answers.

How can we, as a society, believe our ancestors (which they might not even be) about GOD, when millions of other people believe in countless other supernatural beings. We laugh at their idea of divinity. But who says who’s right and wrong. The answer really is no one. Sure, you can believe in what ever you want as a spiritual guide along your journey in life, but that does not mean you have chosen the correct one.

I am an atheist. But I do believe in a god. I believe in the supernatural powers of my bong.

Thank you.

Jeff,

ps–super though they may be, the powers of bongs seem perfectly natural to me.

SUBJECT: In time of doubt, delete the necessary material, and add on whatever’s on the closest box of cereal, like HoneyComb for example, you see…

The only thing I agree about with van Inwagen’s Theodicy is that you can easily scepticize god’s almighty power. It kind of reminds me of a funny story… Van Inwagen brings up some very good questions, though… Why has god allowed “the age of evil” to persist for thousands of years? Good question Petey. Why would god allow this to happen? Evil is… well, evil is evil. If god’s plan, when complete, was to establish a society of good people, why doesn’t he just speed up the process and allow us to live in such a peaceful time, holding hands, and hot air ballooning. By the way, this “plan” of god’s has a resemblance to many other dreams of utopia created by deemed, powerful beings. Doesn’t god love everyone. Then why don’t the hindus, the moslems, or the native americans believe in “our” god; where do they belong in god’s plan? Hopefully god thought out this master plan before starting that big bang; or we’re stuck with an evil, evil world. Not to mention, the evil was caused by sir god himself. Thank you god.

Jeff,

Jason

(Note: Jason was the Professor.)

After watching the movie, This Boy’s Life, I noticed many differences between the movie and the novel. I came to this conclusion: the book is much better. This surprised me since my thinking has always been that a movie must be better than a book, but my feelings have changed. It was a good movie, let me tell you, but since I had just read the book prior, I knew how much the viewer was missing.

A couple differences I’d like to point out before I continue: Rosemary’s name in the movie is Caroline (I see no reason why) and the absence of Bobby Crow.

First of all, sex is one major difference between the novel and the film. The sex scene between Dwight and Rosemary, I mean Caroline, after their wedding is what I’m talking about. But also, Toby hears Roy and Caroline getting it on when the two reconcile in Utah. I didn’t think this was necessary, but the directors did. The scene between Caroline and Dwight is graphic, I believe, especially since it wasn’t needed but also the dialogue was explicit. And I quote: “You can get it doggy-style or you can get it laying on your side; those are your choices.”

I believe this scene is added because sex sells. Everyone knows that. (Baywatch is the number one show in the world for Christ’s sake.) Name a movie without a single sex scene and I’ll tell you you’re watching a Disney flick. The producers know this, the director know this and the actors know it.

Also, instead of getting off watching Annette, the three lads got off watching Lois Lane. A subtle difference, but nonetheless, a difference.

One major significant difference was the added scene in the movie I like to call the Mustard Jar scene. This did happen in the book, but the outcome of the mustard jar incident didn’t happen as the movie portrayed. Toby did say, “yes,” but did not attack Dwight as a result. I feel the director had the movie pan out this way to create excitement, a climax of sorts. The viewers certainly wanted Toby to go nuts on Dwight; he certainly deserved it. As a result, Caroline comes out and they both frantically agree to leave Dwight as Dwight repeatably asks, “What about me?” Also, as this scene dictates, Dwight is the one who tells Toby he stole his paper route money, when instead it was Rosemary who informed Toby in the book. Once again, the director had this happen so the viewer could see the disgust of Toby after hearing this, and create even more hostility.

Now, don’t get me wrong; this all did happen in the book. They did leave Dwight, but not in this fashion. They left over time, quite a while after the proposed mustard jar incident. In fact, it was after this incident in the book that Toby called his brother, and the beginning of the prep school dream started for Toby. In the movie, it was the scholarship to Hill that made Dwight go nuts when, in reality, he didn’t know about this until much later.

A scene that was in the book but not in the movie is the scene where Mr. Howard meets with Toby at a clothes shop. Additionally, all of Toby’s adventures at the Bolger’s house were left out of the movie too. I feel this move was made because the directors thought the heart and meat of the movie lied within Dwight, and end with the climatic exit of Dwight out of Toby and Rosemary’s life. Even if it changes the real story quite a bit. The addition of these scenes would make the movie run long. It is already two hours as it is at this point and the director felt that the final chapters were probably too boring to continue the movie into those scenes.

Another quick observation: Dwight never kills Champion, whom he calls Champ in the movie and Dwight also never threatens Rosemary with her life.

The film, This Boy’s Life, focuses mainly upon the relationship between Dwight and Toby where the novel goes much deeper. The book, This Boy’s Life, also goes into the following relationships, none of which are shown in the movie (or at least not enough): Rosemary-Dwight, Toby-Skipper, Toby-Mr. Howard, and the Toby-Bolger family relationship. The director felt the movie was too long, to continue the story into the Bolgers and the summer Toby was supposed to spend with his father. They had Robert Deniro playing Dwight and wanted the movie to focus on Dwight and his terrorization of Toby. Thus end the movie with the departure of Deniro.

A great movie. A better novel.