When I read Hannah W Foster’s The Coquette, my first impression of Eliza Wharton was that she’s a spoiled brat, a petulant child.  I formed this opinion within three sentences, and my opinion of her has yet to improve.  She has everything she could possibly want, is “the darling child of an indulgent…mother,” and yet she is not happy (Foster 5). She reminds me of celebrity princesses like Miley Cyrus, Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan.  They have wealth and fame and could amazing things with the power that comes with it, but they don’t. They get drunk and high and arrested.  Similarly, Eliza could marry Boyer and, as a preacher’s wife, do a great deal of good in their community. But such a complacent life was not good enough for her, and she sought excitement, much as the celeb princesses seek drugs, which ultimately leads to all of their ruins.

In class we discussed “writing in a corset.” I found it amusing to write backhanded comments, but difficult to find the style necessary.  Eventually, I wrote the following snippet of letter:

My Dearest Friend,

            I hope this letter finds you well.  I have been much distressed by your recent silence.  I have worried that some ill had befallen you or that I had offended you in some way…

I have found one way to translate the phrases. Can you find any others I may have missed?

·         My Dearest Friend,  Remember that bit where we’re close? And how we talk all the time? Apparently not.

·         I hope this letter finds you well…  Or not.

·         I have been much distressed by your recent silence…  Thanks for keeping in touch, bitch.

·         I have worried that some ill had befallen you… That’s the only excuse I’m accepting for ignoring me.

·         …I had offended you in some way…  Taking the blame myself drops an elephant full of guilt on you.  I’ll enjoy your profuse up-sucking in your next letter.

Much as I enjoy the layers of meaning which appear in this style of writing, I do not think I could use it with any regularity.  I think it would be exhausting to always have to carefully choose your every word to glean the most meaning from it.  And as someone mentioned in class, this kind of writing can really mess with your mind.  The tone and the words are sweet and polite, but somehow it seems quite nasty despite all that…so what is this person actually trying to say? Are they being nice? Nasty? Am I looking too far into this?  Besides, I am too frank to maintain this kind of communication for long.  If I do not like somebody, I will let him or her know—unless, of course, the person is a professor or potential employer or somesuch, and then I do not show it at all; it is not worth the risk of him or her seeing through the backhanded comments.  Someone mentioned in class that she would find it cathartic to be able to insult somebody in such a silent way.  I do not agree. I would find it too restrictive. For me, the catharsis comes in the shouting and blunt knowledge of displeasure, not in hidden bitchiness.

When we watched Wrestling with Manhood in class, the only thing I could think was “This makes me sick.”  Well, that and “no way are her boobs actually that big,”  But mostly it was “This makes me sick.”  I felt a plethora of negative emotions throughout the film, including disgust, disbelief, horror, and sadness.  I could not believe that someone would be idiotic enough to try these stunts on their own.  These so-called “wrestlers” are little more than stuntmen.  Would the boys jumping off of roofs onto their friends try reenact the action scenes in movies?  I would hope not.  One of the boys described jumping out of a tree onto another boy. He “nearly broke the kid’s back. It was all worth it, though, got it on film and everything.” Would it have all been worth it if he had broken the kid’s back? If the kid had died? If he had been forced to pay the boy’s medical bills? If he were arrested on charges of homicide?  I am not sure which situation would be more terrifying: if he never even considered these possibilities (I’m just going to do this incredibly idiotic act, but it’ll be fine. You won’t get hurt, and I won’t get in trouble.) or if it would have still been worth it.  As I watched some of the stunts that the WWE considered good entertainment,  I declared these people, these acts, these ideas in my notes to be “too dangerous for words.”  I suspect, though, that Díaz del Castillo would praise them, saying “what men in all the world have shown such daring?” (Díaz del Castillo 70)  I cannot imagine a society in which such cruel insanity could exist, and yet, by some terrible miracle, it has. 

What If...

My first thought upon watching the Lost episode in class was “This is Lord of the Flies.”  It did not take me long to tally up a list of comparisons:

·         A bunch of people—children, really—are stranded on an island due to a plane crash.  I say they were all children, because when we are suddenly dropped into an utterly unknown situation, we are children, no matter what our ages.  The men and women in Lost, just like the boys in Lord of the Flies, are lost, scared, far from anything they recognise or know how to use, looking for somebody to help them, to ease their fears, to make everything right.  Essentially, they’re looking for a mother to rub their backs after a nightmare and a father to scare away the monsters under the bed.

·         They are without food, so when a “he-man” such as Lock or Jack suggests hunting the pigs on the island, everybody follows their bloodlust.

·         There is a mysterious “beastie” hiding in the jungle (Golding 35).  In Lost, it is seen only as something huge moving through the jungle, and possibly represented by the mysterious man lurking along the camp’s edges. 

And every time I encounter a story like this, I ask myself, what would I do?  What would I do if I were stranded on an island or taken as a hostage, like Mary Rowlandson?   What would I do if I were accused of adultery or something, like Hester Prynne or Olive (from Easy A)?

I would like to believe that I would comport myself with dignity. I would like to think that I would help find a way out of the bad situation, or at least help calm the others down.  I would like to think that I would refuse to give in to the demands of my captors, that I would have courage in the face of danger.  I would like to think that I would hold my head high, like Hester, in the face of scandal.

But that’s probably not what would happen.  I would probably freak out if I were stranded or kidnapped.  I would probably throw scorn back at the gossipers or burst into tears. Or both.

So if you were Hester, or Mary, or Olive, or the people in Lost or the boys in Lord of the Flies, how do you think you would react? Would you submit to the circumstances? Would you eat a friend? Would you hold your head high or give the gossips something really good to talk about?

I don’t think we can really know.  As Mary said, “I had often before this said that if the Indians should come, I should choose rather to be killed by them than taken alive, but when it came to the trial my mind changed” (Rowlandson 39).  Much as we may try to predict our actions, our minds are mysteries…even from ourselves.

What is Evil?

Evil is when we lay blame where it does not belong.

People try to say that we are born with evil inside of us because of Original Sin.  Let's rehash that story, shall we?

Adam and Eve were told that they could eat anything in the Garden of Eden except for the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Sounds easy enough.  Satan came in the form of a serpent and convinced Eve that she can and should eat the forbidden fruit.  Once she did, she told Adam to, as well.  Then God cast them out and declared that they would suffer for their sins.

So now women have to suffer through childbirth and centuries of sexism because Eve was gullible. And men "have to struggle to grow enough food" because Adam listened to his wife (Genesis 3:17). The thing is, though, we're neither Adam nor Eve. So why are we still getting punished?