Final Project: Jimmy Corrigan's Tough Instructions For a Reason

While reading the first few pages of Ware’s, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, you may understand why he needed to include reading instructions for his graphic novel, although the deeper reasons are not as obvious until you actually start reading about Jimmy Corrigan. From the beginning, Ware sets the tone for his book to be one of social isolation, confusion and melancholy, simply by the way in which he writes his instructions and how he treats the reader from the beginning, which is an important tool to aid in the deeper emotional response by the reader throughout the novel. Ware was quoted in Irish times as saying, “Comics are not a genre, they’re a language in which you can express anything”. As the graphic novel of Jimmy Corrigan goes, there are many emotions in which Ware expresses throughout the entirety of the novel and he used the instructions to prepare the reader for the depth of emotions the graphic novel would elicit.

Ware’s instructions are condescending and they are meant to insult the reader to a level that may be in line with how the main character in the novel feels in his every day life.  Also, Ware is trying to get the point across, that if you have never read a comic before, this graphic novel should not be your first attempt, but if you make it through the instructions you might be able to understand his deliberately involved and complex style. Most importantly these instructions are meant to involve the reader to an extent that they feel inadequate when reading them, which is the same way that Jimmy Corrigan feels inadequate and lost throughout his life in the novel.  

Throughout the novel there are many instances that will relate back to how the reader is meant to feel during the instructions and how Jimmy Corrigan is feeling at that time. He is often insulted and lost within many normal social situations that “ The Smartest Kid on Earth”, should have no problem interpreting.  There are many correlations to the instructions included in the beginning of the book, and how Ware expected the reader to relate to Jimmy Corrigan on a different level than many other authors have ever tried to accomplish with their characters. By insulting and belittling the readers intelligence early in the instructions, Ware allows the reader to interpret his graphic novel with a new level of understanding, because he makes you to think back to how you felt during the instructions when there were times of total frustration, confusion, and anger.

In the very first impression of the instructions, the reader is meant to feel awkward, and a little overwhelmed. First, the way Ware lays out the instructions and the size of font chosen is very awkward for the reader to try to read.  This was done to possibly discourage some people from reading any further or to just make the reader feel uncomfortable while reading. Furthermore, the discomfort felt by the reader relates to Jimmy wanting to give up in many social situations and how he feels uncomfortable at almost every instance of human interaction in the graphic novel. His facial expressions throughout the novel never show him to be anything but sad, confused, embarrassed, or anxious, which are emotions the reader should feel throughout the instructions. A part in the novel that stands out as an instance when Jimmy completely gives up on an awkward social situation, is when he finds out his dad passed away and his half sister Amy starts yelling at him to leave.  He leaves the room feeling completely at a loss and grabs a cab to the airport as fast as he can, which is how Ware wants the reader to feel as they start to get bogged down by the tedious and insulting instructions.

Further analysis of the relationship between Jimmy and Amy, shows a strong connection between the instructions in the book, and the evolution of their relationship.  In the beginning Amy is very polite and accommodating towards Jimmy, and she is even able to put Jimmy at ease while interacting with her, which is the first point in the novel where Jimmy reaches this comfort level with another human being. From the car ride to Jimmy’s grandfather’s house, to the point when he breaks down and cries in front of her, there is a notable change in the emotions Jimmy had shown in the novel. Similarly, the instructions start out as seemingly being written for the benefit of the reader, but quickly shift to a different tone, which prompts a separate emotion felt by the reader. In the same manner, Jimmy went from feeling comfortable and welcomed by Amy to rushing to the airport without saying a word to her after she pushed and yelled at him in the hospital. Both the reader and Jimmy went from a feeling of understanding and comfort, to a sense of displeasure and desire to avoid any more confrontations or belittlement by Ware or Amy.

To continue with how the emotions felt by the reader at their very first glace of the book and how they relate to the emotions felt by Jimmy during the book, a closer look at the formatting shows what Ware was trying to do to the reader in the first two pages. As Kuhlman and Ball put it in their book, Comics of Chris Ware, “turning to the endpapers reveals “General Instructions,” followed by an “Introduction” and five sections that culminate in an exam, all rendered in painfully tiny type that requires preternatural vision or bringing the book so close to your face that it almost touches your nose” (Kuhlman & Ball, ix). These formatting decisions make the reader feel very awkward, and confused while trying to read the instructions.

 Likewise, the tone set for the reader is exactly how Jimmy Corrigan feels throughout the book, as you can see from the first scenes in the novel with the adult Jimmy Corrigan being harassed on his way to the grocery store for bringing a coat and hat when it is  “ninety five degrees”.  His reasoning for the hat and coat is so that he can stay warm while shopping. Jimmy is planning ahead as “The Smartest Kid on Earth” would possibly do, but this isolates him socially, and it confuses him that other people would not be doing this.  On the same page in the novel, there are three separate places that state, “Jimmy Corrigan The Smartest Kid on Earth”, but only the one small action already mentioned on that page makes you think he is somewhat smart. If anything Jimmy Corrigan is one of the most socially isolated and depressed people on earth. As Amy Hungerford wrote in her article, Fiction in Review, “existential loneliness that readers find in Jimmy Corrigan”, which can be used to solidify the true feelings that Jimmy Corrigan is fundamentally supposed to portray as the main character.  This all relates back to how Ware isolates the reader and makes them feel awkward by simply formatting the instructions in a confusing way.

As previously mentioned, the instructions help to lay the groundwork for evoking certain emotions from the reader at different times in the novel to allow them to relate more closely to how Jimmy Corrigan is feeling at that moment. In particular, section four in the general instructions, titled, “Technical Explanation of the Language, Developing Skills”, is useful in understanding the basics of the comic strip and how Ware plans on using them in his novel.  They are not necessarily included to be an easily read guide for an increasingly difficult graphic novel.  This section is broken down into five questions that guide the reader into only one conclusion per question, which goes from being very basic comic illustration interpretations to questions manipulating the way you are supposed to feel. If the wrong answer is chosen the reader does not go any further in the questions and then is forced to agree with what Ware wants, before the next question is answered, which is how Jimmy is guided through his life by what other people want him to do. An example of this is when Jimmy receives the plane ticket from his father.  After a phone call from his father, Jimmy does not feel like he has any other choice but to go on the trip. Thus, relating back to the choices Ware requires the reader to make during his exam. Overall, Ware is deliberately trying to make sure the reader knows how to interpret the two pictures he placed side by side in the beginning of the section, but at the same time he is insulting the level of comic reading intelligence the reader may or may not have and forcing them to make the decisions he requires.

A further explanation of this section of the instructions is to say that Ware wanted the reader to feel like they were helpless and had no choice but to go along with what he wanted them to answer; otherwise they should just stop reading.  This relates to how Jimmy Corrigan is bossed around in his everyday life and never really stands up for himself, although he secretly dreams of one day having the courage to do so.  One part of the novel that relates how Jimmy Corrigan is treated and how Ware treats the reader in the instructions, is when Jimmy gives his four dollars and fifty cents to a coworker in the break room when he really does not want to.  He does not stand up for himself, which is exactly how the reader is supposed to deal with the test.  Ware makes himself out to be the aggressive worker in the break room, while the reader is required to sit there and take whatever is given to them without putting up a fight, because if they try to answer differently than Ware wants them to, they have no options to continue the test.  

Furthermore, Ware establishes his comic superiority over the reader early in the instructions and insults their comic reading intelligence at the same time during section four, because this breaks the reader down to a level he requires them to be on to understand the story of Jimmy Corrigan. This also opens the reader up to the idea that this is unlike any graphic novel they have read before and invokes certain emotions towards Ware, which Ware will draw upon later in the novel.  Ware was interested in writing a difficult to understand graphic novel for only the truly interested and well versed comic enthusiast, because they might be the only people who can fully understand the complex emotions and depth of feelings in his novel.  The section also references figure 1 on the next page, which is undoubtedly a masterpiece of Ware’s confusing and insulting style. This figure is meant to confuse the reader, and show them how Jimmy Corrigan feels about the world around him. It is not by coincidence that part of the figure references the evolution of the world.  The world seems to have evolved past the understanding of Jimmy Corrigan and he is just drifting through his life without ever having a true purpose. Ware shows the evolution of the world in the instructions and starts the novel with a two page sequence zooming in from space to the childhood home of Jimmy Corrigan, because he wants to epitomize the lost and isolated feelings Jimmy feels in his life. 

Furthermore, the two illustrations in the test section are a small fraction of the difficult illustrations that are to come in the first figure and throughout the rest of the graphic novel. They were used to show if you could not interpret the two simple illustrations to the level Ware demands, you would not be able to fully comprehend what is going on in the rest of Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth.

As well as making sure the reader can understand basic comics, Ware is once again insulting the intelligence and simple comprehension skills of the reader, because that is what Jimmy seems to lack the most in the novel.  He seems to have absolutely no understanding of how to interact like a normal person, and fails when he tries to step out of his comfort zone.  At one point he calls Peggy from work to ask her to save his mail for him while he is out of town.  This is socially inappropriate for a few reasons, but mostly because he is calling her at home, after work about something she would already have to do as part of her job.  Needless to say, the interaction does not go well for Jimmy, even though he may have thought it went well because he probably never talked to her outside of work before. Equally as inappropriate as the Peggy interaction, is the interaction he has with the nurse after he was hit by the mail truck.  The nurse is nice to him as part of her job, and he immediately starts to fantasize about her to the point of them being married and growing old together.  The lack of social understanding in the book is related to the lack of comic understanding Ware assumes the reader has throughout the instructions.

            Next, the beginning section four states that, “most of the talents required for the understanding of this volume are essentially intuitive, though some basic premises must be re-established before attempting a thorough apprehension of the complete work.” This is another way in which Ware belittles the reader and makes sure that even if they think they know comics or graphic novels this one is different than any they have encountered before. Also, the use of the word, “talent” implies the reader must have, “a special ability that allows someone to do something well” (Merriam-Webster, “Talent”). He uses this to make the reader feel inadequate if they do not immediately understand his simple instructions, which is similar to the way Jimmy Corrigan feels with his interactions to other people.  This is another subtitle way in which Ware is trying to bring the reader to the level of Jimmy Corrigan and make them feel the inadequacies Jimmy feels throughout the graphic novel.  Also, Ware is trying to weed out some readers by insulting them and making them feel like this book is too hard to possibly be read by an average comic reader.  Kuhlman and Ball make a good point when they wrote, “As the cover warns us, what we have here is definitely “a bold experiment in reader tolerance,” and many will not have the time, interest, or patience for it” (Kuhlman & Ball, ix).  Ware would rather only have the truly patient readers traverse through the confusing novel, by isolating them early in the instructions, than have readers who will only have a general idea about what is going on throughout the graphic novel.  As previously mentioned, readers need to feel a certain way when they read the instructions to allow them to feel the true depth of emotions Jimmy goes through during the events that take place in the novel.

            Next in section four, there are the two illustrations previously mentioned, which are two small boxes that contain a mouse standing and a cats head in the floor, with a sequence of events taking place between them.  The very first question is about what the reader believes the two illustrations could be portraying. Ware asks, “Do you see a) two boxes printed in the midst of text filled with a confusing arrangement of outlined shapes that are utterly incomprehensible, or b) two boxes printed in the midst of text on a page with tiny pictures of mice and a cat head inside them?” Of course, the reader is not going to choose option (a), because it sounds completely ridiculous, but this is what Ware is going for. He knows it sounds absurd and does not think anyone will think it is the correct answer, but it is another small way in which he insults the reader and shows how little he may think of him or her, or how he wants to make sure they are even capable of the most basic comic strip reading. The two illustration boxes are clearly moment-to-moment as we learned about in Mcloud, but Ware is still straining the reader’s patience by asking simple questions about the basic illustrations.

Also, Ware is ensuring the reader has basic comic reading skills, because he is putting the readers skills on the same level as Jimmy Corrigan’s lack of understanding of basic social cues. This is once again insulting to the reader but serves a deeper purpose. What most people take for granted when it comes to social interactions, Jimmy Corrigan finds extremely confusing and intolerable because he has no idea what to do in normal interactions with other people. A very good example of this is when he is flying to meet his father for the first time, and he has a conversation with a woman next to him on the plane.  She is the complete opposite of Jimmy, and does most of the talking, which abruptly ends when she calls him out for looking at her breasts. Jimmy barely says anything to her because she is not only a stranger talking to him, but she also seems to be an attractive woman, which makes Jimmy extremely uncomfortable. This relates to Ware taking the reader from basic comics to his comics in one step, which is why there needs to be instructions. Ware does not want the reader to be completely lost and overwhelmed like Jimmy was during his brief interaction on the plane. 

            In the next question, Ware asks, “If b), do you see a) two mice and two cat heads in two boxes next to each other, one raising a hammer above his head, the other striking a cat head with a very similar hammer, or b) one mouse and one cat head, portrayed at two different points in time, the result of comparison being the impression of the same mouse striking the same cat head with the same hammer?” This question is not as insulting as the previous one, but still is making the reader feel a little insulted by making sure they understand how time evolves through comics.  The reader can take this as an insult or as a helpful guidance to the way they should see time happening in comic strips, which is very important because Ware likes to jump around in time and from story to story without any notice.  Again the way these questions are interpreted can be one extreme to the other and Ware is testing the patience of the reader in the beginning to ensure they will have enough to methodically read his very unusual and unconventional graphic novel that lies ahead.

Moreover, a sense of doubt felt from the reader is also an emotion Ware would like to make the reader feel in this section before they encounter the doubts and fears of Jimmy Corrigan. Ware does this because it allows him to reference points in the instructions when the reader doubted their own skills. One such point is early on in the novel when Jimmy has his first dream of being a robot.  This point is very difficult to understand when you first read the novel, but the reader is meant to doubt their own understanding of what is going on for a few pages.  They can reference back to their doubts felt in the interpreting of the instructions and it should make the reader slow down so they can try to understand the complexity of the events transpiring over the dream sequence. The novel goes from a fairly straightforward comic to a complex series of illustrations that require much deeper analysis from the reader to achieve a full understanding of the vivid dreams that come from the dull Jimmy Corrigan.

            Next, the sequence of events between the two boxes in the instructions is the topic of questions three and question four.  Ware is making sure that the reader is not completely lost on how comic strips are used to show movement of things and how it relates to the time of events. He uses one question to ensure that the readers know you read from left to right, because this will be of importance during the reading of his graphic novel. He goes from left to right unless otherwise specified by the use of red arrows to direct the reader through the illustrations. This is one of the most basic reading requirements in the English language, and Ware uses it as one of his test questions to show just how little he thinks of the reader. Again, it is important to note that Ware is comparing the abilities of the reader to interpret comics to the inability of Jimmy Corrigan to comfortably interact with other people. A reader must remember how little Ware thought of them during the instructions and compare that to the level of confidence Ware gives Jimmy Corrigan during social interactions.

Moreover, during questions three and four, Ware writes less and makes sure the reader knows the cat’s head is being hit with the hammer by the mouse, and not the mouse lifting the hammer off the cat’s head.  This was emphasized because Ware includes violence in his novel at times, and does not shy away from confrontations between characters is his novel. Ware makes you believe the mouse was hitting the cat’s head because in most cases the cat is the one hurting the mice but he wanted the smaller adversary to have the upper hand and he wanted the reader to feel a sense of sympathy for the mouse.  Revealed later in the book, the elder Jimmy Corrigan could be seen as the mouse and his father seen as the cat, with Jimmy wanting to be the one in charge of the hitting and not his father.

            Lastly, Ware asks, “If b) did you, a) feel sorry for the cat head, or b) not?” The only correct answer for Ward is answer (b), and that shows that he does not want the reader to always feel bad for the one being attacked in the comic book because they may not know the full story behind the events leading up to the conflict. He intends the readers to think above and beyond the illustrations he provides and question the motives behind them. This is the first exposure to violence that will be shown throughout the book, but mainly violence is only in the daydreams of the characters.  The violence displayed can be very vivid at times, but in reality both Jimmy Corrigan’s are non-threatening characters.  Ware included this small exposure in his instructions to further insult the reader by making sure they did not feel sympathy for fictional characters.

            Instances of violence throughout the novel are almost always showing Jimmy Corrigan as the aggressor, except for when it comes to Jimmy’s grandfather and his great grandfather. When Jimmy is dreaming he is always the one taking charge and harming someone else, but in his real life he would never harm anyone.  This part of the instructions shows a situation of violence that would never be possible, which is what is shown in the novel.  At one point, in a dream of Jimmy’s, he is shown hitting his father with a mug and then slicing his back open with it.  This is a very graphic scene of violence for Jimmy Corrigan, but the reader was clued into this not being real by the illustrations include in the instructions. As discussed already, the transitions between real life and Jimmy’s dream are not always distinctly defined, so Ware used the instructions to prepare the reader for these unrealistic acts of violence. 

            Then in the last segment of section four, Ware gives the readers who answered (b) to all of his questions the okay to read the comic book, while anyone who did not answer (b) to all the questions has to take an exam in the next section.  He tells the exam taker’s to not dally, be honest, and to fill in the ovals completely with firm pressure. This section takes on a bossy and annoyed tone, because he is treating the reader how Jimmy Corrigan is treated in parts of the novel.

            Ware included his instructions and in particular this section to make sure his graphic novel was interpreted correctly, and only by people who are patient enough to think on the level required. Ware also included the instructions to demand a certain amount of respect from the reader, and ensure they were prepared to think critically about what he spent so much time constructing. In addition, Ware wanted to ensure certain emotions were felt at distinct points in the novel, some of which have been discussed already. This graphic novel is meant to be on a different level than any other graphic novel at the time it was written, and Ware knew he needed to set the tone early to in the end help his reader enjoy the book.  Although, at times Ware is rude and condescending, it was all required for the benefit of the reader, and helped to enrich the readers understanding of Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth.

            By the end of reading this section, the reader is slightly prepared for what is to come on the next page, and throughout the rest of the graphic novel. Ware crammed an immense amount of information into two small pages at the beginning of the book, so he could overwhelm the reader to the point of quitting or to the point of full understanding.  The overwhelmed feeling was used to put the reader in a mindset the Jimmy feels on a daily basis when dealing with the world around him.

In conclusion, many emotions were invoked by Ware for the reader to remember the instructions and relate them to parts of his graphic novel. This was a strategy that made his book what it is and allowed it to set a new standard for graphic novels. As Gregory Gallant was quoted saying, “Chris (Ware) really changed the playing field. After him, a lot of (cartoonists) really started to scramble and go holy (expletive), ‘I think I have to try harder’” (Random House, “Building Stories”). Even though this quote was about another book, it references how Chris Ware changed the way “cartoonist” or “illustrators” though about how they approached their work.

References

Ball, David. Kuhlman, Martha. Comics of Chris Ware. University Press of Mississippi, 2010. Web.

"Chris Ware's Comic-Book World." Irish Times: 12. 2012. Web 2 December 2014.

Hungerford, Amy. Fiction in Review: Chris Ware. The Yale Review, 101: 148–159. doi: 10.1111/yrev.12095

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comic The Invisible Art. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc. 1994. Print.

“Building Stories.” Random House. Penguin Random House, n.d. Web. 8 November 2014.

<http://www.randomhouse.com/book/185702/building-stories-by-chris-ware#praise>

“Talent." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2014.  <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/talent>.

Ware, Chris. Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth. New York City: Pantheon Books, 2000. Print.

Why Mothers Matter: Women in The Book of Genesis (Final Paper)

The Book of Genesis is very different from some of the other books in the Bible. The God portrayed is often merciless and asks unspeakable things of his followers (God’s request of Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac is one example), and the characters that make up the many stories in Genesis do not always seem to have the best morals. Yet, despite having many disagreeable qualities, the male purpose in Genesis is very clear; they are called upon by God to fulfill his requests and to act as prophets. Noah builds the ark, Isaac and Abraham build nations by fathering many children and in the end, it is the men who speak to God directly. Likewise, the women in Genesis have many similar unsavory qualities; they are sneaky, manipulative, and they often seem subservient and submissive. However, unlike men, the purpose of women in the Bible is less obvious. I believe R. Crumb draws women of the Bible as strong, powerful, figures to argue that the role of women in Genesis as being mothers and wives is a very important one. Some would say the Bible suggests a woman’s place is in the home, and many feminists today believe this to be offensive towards females. However, Crumb argues, and as a female I also argue, that by occupying motherly roles, women of the Bible are made to be just as important (if not more important) than their male counterparts. In making this argument, Crumb is bringing forth an inherent feminist quality to the Book of Genesis many people overlook. Through his general illustrations of women in the Book of Genesis, and through more specifically his depictions of Lot’s daughters, Dinah, Sarah and Rachel, and Tamar, Crumb is able to show motherhood in a feminist light. This in turn urges people to view the role of stay at home mothers in modern society as empowering rather than detrimental to the progress of female equality.

Women in Crumb’s illustrated version of the Book of Genesis are all portrayed very similarly. In his illustrations, Crumb draws women’s faces in an almost manly way. In fact, it can be hard to discern between male and female characters. This could be Crumb’s way of illustrating the equality he sees between men and women in Genesis. Both men and women occupy important roles in God’s plan, and by making both sexes look similar, Crumb is addressing these equally vital roles. However, in places throughout the Book of Genesis Crumb appears to sexualize women in his drawings. When women are not wearing clothes, their bodies are drawn as being full figured with large breasts. When the women are clothed, he often includes their cleavage or he shows their nipples through their dresses. One interpretation of this style of artwork could be the idea that he is simply drawing crude images to sexualize women in the stories; Crumb has said that he prefers more full-bodied women, so perhaps he is drawing from his preferences. This preference can be seen in many of his other pieces in which women are drawn in compromising positions. This not only sexualizes women, but reduces them to nothing but figures to look at. For example, in his drawing “Imaginary woman against the wall”, he portrays just that. A woman is standing, legs spread apart, bent forward exposing a large backside with her face smashed against the wall. Her large posterior is obviously the focus of the picture, but what is more disturbing is that her face is hardly visible at all. The woman in the picture “is her butt”; it defines her and this idea is demoralizing. This theme of objectifying women seems to be prevalent throughout much of Crumb’s work; if the Book of Genesis has very large and shapely women as well, it seems counterproductive to the possible idea that Crumb believes men and women share equal roles. However there are differences between the women in the Book of Genesis and Crumb’s other work. One of the main differences is while the women still possess large breasts and large butts, they are not featured in as many compromising positions. Their assets do not become the focus of the image, but rather part of the image. It is also possible Crumb draws women in Genesis as he does to emphasize fertility. Large breasts and wide hips are both signs of fertility and maternity, and both qualities are exhibited in the types of women Crumb draws. If the importance of women in the Bible is the fact that they fulfill God’s plan through bearing children, it makes sense to draw them with figures that look as though they were built to do so. By emphasizing these specific motherly and womanly qualities, Crumb is highlighting the fact that in Genesis, being a mother is a very significant role. Because he draws women the way he does, he insinuates that motherhood is a role that should be taken seriously within the context of the Bible and also within the context of modern society.           

It is a fact that most women in the Bible are mothers. Today, many people believe this role to be insignificant and the women to be submissive, serving no other purpose than to oblige their husbands, thus providing children for them. According to “The Bible Now” by Richard Elliot Friedman, “some people say that the Bible was enlightened for its time, a crucial step in an evolution (some would say a revolution) of women’s status. Others say that males composed the Bible, that it was the product of patriarchal society, that it was the justification of such patriarchal society, and that it has been one of the best-known contributors to maintaining an inferior status of women” (Friedman). In fact, some feminists even go so far as to say “[no] one who is truly a feminist can find any authentic meaning for herself within the context of these traditions. To do so is sheer masochism and dependency. Feminists must purge themselves of all traces of adherence to these religions and turn to alternative woman's religions.” (Ruether). This quote explains that many feminists believe women should abandon the traditional views of females in religion (and perhaps even the religions themselves) because they reduce women’s self-worth to close to nothing. In short, this quote claims no meaning can be drawn from the women in the Bible. I believe Crumb would disagree with the idea that the portrayal of women in the Bible is a main contributor to the inferior status of women. I say this because by illustrating women as robust characters with womanly figures, he portrays them as being very strong. Shapely bodies are not drawn to demoralize women in this case, but rather, they are drawn because of the fact that their main purpose is to be mothers. Despite popular feminist belief today, Crumb argues the ability to be a mother is one of the strongest qualities a woman can possess, and that fertility is given to her by God (and in some cases God grants a woman fertility even in old age or after years of not being able to conceive; such is the case in the Bible) as a way to carry out His plan. The mothers in the Bible give birth to children that are fated to be future kings. The women are necessary elements in God’s plan. In regards to this position, I find myself tending towards agreeing with Crumb. I believe motherhood, as portrayed in the Book of Genesis, is what makes the female characters strong and influential.  

A further argument against the submissive nature of women in the Bible can be seen in the fact that they often take their futures into their own hands. Through rather devious manors, Tamar makes decisions that shape the life she leads and ultimately the children she bears. In Tamar’s story, she is originally married to Er, son of Judah, but he dies before the two are able to conceive. Because of this, Judah orders his other son, Onan, to have a child with Tamar so Er’s name will live on. Onan fails to do so and Tamar is sent back to her family to live until Judah can provide another son for her to wed. As a young childless widow, she still belongs to Er’s family and cannot remarry despite her husband’s death. Tamar is not “worth” very much to her own family, and she realizes her future depends upon whether or not Judah holds up his end of the deal by marrying her to his son Shelah. Unhappy with this fate, she decides to play the part of the village prostitute where she tricks Judah into impregnating her (Crumb Chapter 38). This is the case of a young woman risking everything so she may provide a better future for herself. Left with very few prospects, she overcomes the obstacles placed in front of her and transcends what is expected of her. Her use of trickery reflects her knowledge of her father-in-law, and it also reflects on her intelligence in general. She is an exceptionally smart woman capable of many things, and she demands to receive what she is promised. In this context, it becomes rather difficult to see Tamar as being a submissive wife, as she blatantly refuses to accept a fate bestowed upon her by her husband’s family. 

 A further example can be seen in Chapter 19 through the story of Lot and his daughters. After God destroys their city Lot and his two daughters escape with the belief that they are the only three people left on Earth. The eldest daughter says “our father is old, and there is no man on Earth to come to bed with us like the way of all the world! Come, let’s give our father wine to drink, and let’s lie with him so that we may keep alive seed from our father!” (Crumb Chapter 19). This in itself is a twisted story; the idea that two daughters sleep with their father in order to bear his children is scandalous. Yet despite the controversial nature of the story, I argue, and I believe Crumb argues, it actually illustrates the importance of women, especially women as mothers, in the Bible. Lot’s daughters suddenly find themselves saddled with the responsibility of keeping the human race alive, and because of this enormous duty, they choose to sleep with their father. This shows that through reproduction and motherhood, women serve God and all humanity. Crumb illustrates this idea in the last picture of the chapter. In this image, the two daughters are teaching their sons how to hunt; the sons then grow up to become leaders of the Moabites and the Ammonites. Not only do the sisters give birth to two sons in order to save the human race, the birth leaders of nations. The picture drawn by Crumb of the hunting lesson implies that the sisters are responsible for not only birthing future kings, but also for teaching them how to be successful by engaging in the responsibilities of motherhood. Crumb draws Lot sitting in the background almost blending in to the cliff behind him with an empty plate of food (Crumb Chapter 19) This depiction of Lot suggests a rather lazy demeanor, and that the role of raising the children and providing for the family falls mainly on the two women. This is interesting because many people consider caring for children and providing food for the family (as the women do by hunting) as some of the typical roles taken on in motherhood. Crumbs portrayal of the sisters as having strong bodies perhaps indicates that he believes strong women are responsible for the strength of men in the Bible, and that being a mother is one of the ultimate acts of strength.

            Of course, there can always be a counterargument to this view of Lot’s daughters. The argument here is embedded in the characters themselves. This is one of the only times the daughters come up in the Book of Genesis, and they are seen as not only seductresses, but incestuous seductresses. This paints them in such negative light that the counterargument simply becomes, “how could they possibly be good?”. It takes a tremendous amount of analysis and understanding of the characters and their actions, but with this underfoot, the good qualities of the daughters come to the surface allowing them to be rightly viewed as powerful women. The emphasis should not be placed upon what the daughters do, but rather why they do it. Why do certain women make the choices they make?

As a female I support the rights of women and I stand by feminist practices and beliefs, however, I believe certain feminist ideals have proven to be problematic. The idea that being a mom is often seen as being less significant choice than devoting one’s life to a career worries me. It also seems to be something Crumb addresses through the Book of Genesis. His depictions of women imply that they are strong because of their natural abilities and “God given” attributes, be this intelligence, work ethic, or the ability to take care of a family. Some feminist theories today push women out of the home so they can express their individuality, yet this is where the main problem exists. In the article “Teaching About Motherhood: Revisioning Family”, “feminist philosopher Patrice DiQuinzio (1999) discusse[s] the problem of rationalizing feminism, individualism, and mothering. Individualism considers each individual as a separate unit, which is basic to the argument for equal treatment and equal rights, but motherhood requires acknowledging interconnectedness between individuals who have distinct and competing needs, such as the need of the mother to self-actualize and the need of the infant for her undivided attention. This philosophical analysis led her to conclude that mothering has been, and will continue to be, an intractable problem for feminist theory” (Hoffnung). While feminism is often centered on treating women as individuals and enforcing female autonomy, the female ability to bear children goes against this very statement. The act of having a child means a woman cannot simply work in her own self-interest anymore. She must take care of another person and put that person’s needs before her own; it is in her biology to be able to do so. Is it wrong for a woman to have a child simply because it forces her to give up her independence? Does giving up her independence in order to have children make her less important to society? Crumb does not seem to think so, and this idea can be a complication in some people’s idea of feminism. To some, the child rearing lifestyle represents weakness, but at the same time, it exemplifies feminine strength and the ability to take on the needs of others and to provide for a family.

            If the female ability to bear children affects how she sees individualism and how individualism pertains to her, how else does it affect women and feminism? History provides an example when “some feminists promoted protective legislation for working women and children because their health was put at risk by extremely long work hours and exposure to unhealthy working conditions. Other feminists argued against protective legislation because it would limit women’s freedom to work and would provide a rationale for gender-based differentials in pay and opportunities for promotion. Protecting women ultimately would mean excluding women from positions that would be more lucrative and more likely to lead to advancement” (Hoffnung). This quote brings up an interesting topic revolving around choice. Some believe women should be protected because of their ability to have children while others believe protecting a woman simply because she can have kids is unfair. The second view focuses on the importance of woman in the workforce but it diminishes the importance of women as mothers. I believe this is where choice comes in to play. In the Bible, many women choose to have children, but having children is also an act that is heavily encouraged in their societies. Some argue women of the Bible are “forced” into motherhood because of their cultural beliefs and practices, which is seen as a bad thing. Yet, how is this different from the societal push towards getting women out of the home and into the workforce? In either case, some women will either be forced into something they do not want, or suffer the consequences of going against societal norms. If it is seen as “bad” in the Bible, it should also be seen as “bad” in today’s society. All women deserve to have a choice, and it seems from the quote above many views on how women should be treated take away that choice. According to the article “On Norms and Agency: Conversations about Gender Equality with Women and Men in 20 Countries”, “Kabeer (2001, 19) defines empowerment as the ‘expansion in people’s ability to make strategic life choices in a context where this ability was previously denied to them’” (Munoz). Going by this definition, simply making the decision to be a mother or to not be a mother is empowering for women; it is all about having the ability to choose.

            Interestingly, choice and the treatment of women come into play in the Book of Genesis as well. Through his illustrations, Crumb’s view on the topic becomes apparent. Crumb argues women should be treated differently, but with respect, based on his portrayal of Dinah. In Genesis, Dinah appears to be raped by Shechem, Son of Hamor the Hivite Prince. After the rape, Dinah’s brothers take revenge on the entire town by killing Shechem and all the men of the city and take their sister back. In the end of the story Jacob is upset with his sons for their actions but Simon and Levi say “like a whore should our sister be treated?!” (Crumb Chapter 34). Through his illustrations, readers see Dinah treated by Shechem with the utmost disrespect and in turn, he is killed. The violence Crumb depicts when Sachem is murdered indicates Crumb feels strongly about the actions of Simon and Levi and essentially validates them. What would have happened if Dinah had been a man? Most likely, her brothers would not care about Shechem’s actions. But Dinah is a female. She has childbearing capabilities and Shechem exploited her (and essentially those capabilities though no child is mentioned). Also, the fact that Dinah does not bear a child after this indicates perhaps the unfair treatment she receives bars her from having children and continuing Shechem’s lineage. This implies that women should be treated differently than men, but they should not be treated disrespectfully.

Another example illustrating that Crumb may believe women should be treated differently but respectfully can be seen in the fertility “contest” between Rachel and Leah. In this case, both women are competing against one another to provide more children for their husband, Jacob. When both women find themselves unable to conceive, they offer their handmaids to Jacob so they may bear his children in his name. Both women believe that by having children they will be serving God and pleasing Jacob, and by doing so they will be the stronger wife. This makes sense because the ability to bear children is given to them by God, and to them, the woman with the most children would seem to be more favored in God’s eyes, and thus stronger. This idea of a woman as a sort of child bearing “machine” is one that is adamantly rejected by modern feminist culture, and I think Crumb addresses this clash between Biblical beliefs and modern views in his illustrations of Rachel and Leah. For example, in Chapter 30, there is a caption that says “and afterward she bore a daughter and she called her name Dinah” (Crumb Chapter 30). Under this caption is an image of Leah and all of her children fighting, screaming, and crying. This picture is followed by an image of Rachel looking calm and peaceful while staring down at her first son Joseph. In Crumbs illustration, God has given Leah seven children but she is pictured fighting with them (yet nowhere in the text does it say Leah and her children did not get along), while Rachel only has one child and seems to be at peace. It is also important to remember the importance of Joseph (and the fact that he was his father’s favorite son) because Joseph is born of Rachel, the sister who bore fewer children. This implies Crumb believes women are meant to bear children, but that God does not necessarily intend for women to be child baring “machines”. Women do not exist for the sole purpose of having as many children as possible; respect and credit needs to be given to those women who have and raise children to the best of their ability because being a good mother and a strong woman is more important than simply having children.  

According to Crumb’s illustrations, it is apparent that he believes women were created by God so they may provide future generations of kings. Many modern feminists find issues with this claim. However, I do not believe Crumb intends this work to be sexist in any way, and I as a female, do not find the work to be sexist. Like Crumb, I believe the Bible places a great deal of importance on the fact that women can choose to become mothers, and this feminine quality brings women many opportunities to be powerful and strong. In society today many people see women’s roles as being either black or white. Stay at home mothers have been frowned upon because of the belief that a woman should be in the workforce providing for her family without relying on her husband. However, Crumb’s illustrations show that women can provide for the family and be independent by being mothers. I believe Crumb intends to emphasize the importance of the role God has given women in the Bible, and he illustrates female characters the way he does to emphasize strength and the idea that motherhood should be seen as a position of power rather than a weakness.

                                                       

Works Cited

Crumb, R., and Robert Alter. The Book of Genesis. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2009.

Crumb, R. "Imaginary Girl against the Wall." Cartoon. Jacqueline Valencia. N.p.,

     n.d. Web. 8 Dec. 2014. <http://jacquelinevalencia.files.wordpress.com/

     2012/10/imaginary-girl-crumb.jpg>.

Friedman, Richard Elliott, and Dolansky, Shawna. Bible Now. Cary, NC, USA: Oxford University Press, USA, 2011. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 11 October 2014.

Copyright © 2011. Oxford University Press, USA. All rights reserved.

Hoffnung, Michele. "Teaching about Motherhood: Revisioning Family." Psychology of Women Quarterly 35.2 (2011): 327-30.

Muñoz Boudet, Ana  María, Petesch, Patti, and Turk, Carolyn. On Norms and Agency : Conversations about Gender Equality with Women and Men in 20 Countries. Herndon, VA, USA: World Bank Publications, 2013. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 7 December 2014.

Ruether, Rosemary Radford. "Feminism and Patriarchal Religion: Principles of Ideological Critique of the Bible." Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 22.1 (1982): 54-66.

Final Project: The Question of Reality

               Johnny Truant’s mind is turning on itself. Through his journal entries, we see Johnny forget what he does for months at a time, attempt to lie to himself as he grows weaker and more insane. He creeps close to ending not only his own life, but imagines committing murder as well. The Navidson Record possesses him; he searches for its meaning and a trace of its reality across the country. He has become so deeply entangled with its fiction that he seems to give up his will to live. The darkness of the halls in the house constantly surround him and cloud his vision. Jimmy Corrigan is unable to escape his fantasies as well. He lives in a world filled with daydreams that leave the awkward and lonely reality of his life behind. He cuts himself off from the world with these fantasies, cuts himself off from the only chance he has at connecting with family. Stumbling through life and saying very little, Jimmy’s isolation stems from the same behavior that Johnny’s does (along with Navidson and Zampano, for that matter): reality has been overtaken with obsessive illusion. The parallels lie not only within the characters, but are outwardly expressed in the pages of their stories, turning the illusion, ironically, into a very tangible reality that can change the way we view illusion entirely outside of fictional universes.

                Will Navidson’s house is the clear catalyst of the illusions that characters feel in House of Leaves. We can understand the first-degree psychological consequences by first looking at Will Navidson himself, and his interesting relationship with the place. As noted early in the book, Will’s childhood has a great impact on his identification with the darkness and depth of the place: he identifies with the absence felt when left practically orphaned, the absence that the halls of the house embody in their ashen walls and windless corridors. Because he identifies so closely with the house, Will begins to develop almost an obsession with it. He leaves behind the realities of his family and risks his life to try to understand the house. In Aguirre’s analysis of closed spaces in the horror genre, he looks specifically at labyrinths in one section, explaining that a prisoner within the labyrinth with either escape or submit: it “is something to get out of – or to submit and adapt to” (Aguirre, p 54). Rather than escaping, Navidson wishes to explore and stay, to try to live within a deathly environment. He is becoming one with the illusion as he is drawn to it. On his final return – Exploration # 5 – Navidson is unlike any of the other characters as he feels he must go back. Whether it is due to a motivation to possess, a motivation to self-punish, or the psychological after-effects of his earlier explorations, Navidson had grown too attached to the darkness and absence that the house provided. He could not re-enter into reality because he was too wrapped up in the illusions that the house created by surrounding him with an absolute silence and darkness in which he could create a final judgment for himself and an escape from the world of Delial and the fame she brought on him.

                If it was escape reality that Navidson imagined within the house, the illusions of The Navidson Record almost seemed to entrap Johnny Traunt. He spiraled deeper and deeper into illusion as his life began to revolve completely – in waking and sleeping – around Zampano’s writing and the mysterious house. Obsession brought paranoia, extreme fear, near starvation. He no longer talks to those who once mattered to him – Lude dies in his absence – and he loses the ability to care even for himself. Like Navidson, Johnny is obsessed with the house and its mysterious power. It has the ability to exist where it shouldn’t be able to exist, it can take lives and change its shape at will. As I mentioned above, it was the emptiness of the house that drew Navidson to it. Johnny was perhaps drawn to the house because of its ability to shift and move. He’s spent a lot of his time with Lude creating a world and a life from his own imagination – shifting his past and to change his present. The book he finds left behind by Zampano creates a different kind of escape and, while it brings him close to death, it also takes him away from the harshness of his own reality. Own one hand, this rejection of reality and obsession with the house on Ash Tree Lane connects him to both Navidson and Zampano. We can even see points where the connection becomes so strong that parts of Zampano’s story exist in Johnny’s world: after discovering others have read his compilation of Zampano’s work (which in and of itself is an instance where The Navidson Record seems real), Johnny goes to the park to sleep and “stretched out beneath an old ash tree” (Danielewski, p 514). Johnny buys the gun Holloway wielded to protect himself from the ‘monster’ within the house. He believes his own house will begin to expand and shrink as the Navidson’s did, and obsessively measures the dimensions of his apartment. The lines separating reality and fantasy, separating one world from another, are clearly blurred. Even if Johnny isolates himself from his friends and co-workers, he is connected to the other levels of Danielewski’s novel through his obsession with illusion; connected both psychologically and physically.

                The impact of choosing illusion over reality can also be seen clearly in Jimmy Corrigan, where Jimmy is constantly fantasizing about his world, but living only through fantasy and very much ignoring the reality of his life. Jimmy’s character is derived from the world of over-analyzing, as he tends to analyze to the point where he imagines and dreams up scenarios for most of his life, creating a constant mix of fantasy and reality for the reader. Looking at his life from every angle, Jimmy creates in his head a diagram of possibilities – he imagines himself a hero at some times, a murderer at others, a lover, a husband, but never the role he acts out in reality. Like Navidson, Jimmy hides his true self in darkness: for Navidson, this darkness was found within the house; for Jimmy it is found in his silence as he simply observes the world around it and chooses not to interact. These actions prove to be isolating for Jimmy, as he misses a chance to bond with his father and sister, to better understand his past. One place where we can clearly see a missed opportunity to connect with others is with Amy. By staying together and attempting to understand their history, Amy and Jimmy could have created a more human connection with each other in the present: “Jimmy’s disappearance is a tragic failure of family reconciliation” (Ball, 2010) for both characters. If the past is emphasized, Jimmy fails to realize its importance to his and Amy’s present because of his inability to remain in the present. The fear and paranoia Jimmy feels because of his tendency to over-analyze his world and imagine all possible outcomes (often with focus on the bad) is literally preventing him from creating connections in reality. Even an examination of Chris Ware’s comic style blurs the lines between reality and illusion: in David Ball’s analysis, he looks at the fact that Ware’s work falls somewhere between “illusionism” and “realism” (Ball, 2010). Rather than showing us the gritty images of realism, Ware’s drawings are able to show the emotions that realism can’t. This allows us to better see Jimmy’s feelings and thoughts, the fantasies he holds in his head that we wouldn’t understand or see in realism. This fact shows us more about Jimmy Corrigan’s character, and shows how impossible it is to rely on even the author to create a clear distinction between fantasy and reality for the reader. Jimmy Corrigan is lost in fantasy, isolated from others, and leaves the reader just as confused in trying to distinguish between the reality and illusion as well.

                By comparing the psychological impact this mental state and obsession with fantasy and escape has on the characters in these books we can see how connected the characters really are. To understand the underlying psychology of how reality and illusion are formed, it is important to first look at the concept of ‘reality’ in general: how we define reality is very subjective – reality differs immensely from one subject to another.  Looking at the overlap of personal realities is where Emmanuel Cassimatis develops his ideas about the ability of reality to both isolate and connect people. He talks about the subjectivity of reality, saying “Each one of us lives in his/her own reality, that is, experiences perceptions, feelings, and events in life as real” (2000). The mind of each individual is then reflected in the reality that he perceives around him, unlike any other’s realities completely, but similar in very important ways. When realities overlap, they become more accepted. Cassimatis refers to this overlapping of realities as sharing, and explains that “This sharing validates, and often adds meaning to our personal reality… But again, does sharing by itself make a reality more real?” (2000). What one person sees as a private reality might be perceived by others as illusion or fantasy. In this context, it is much harder to see someone like Jimmy Corrigan or Johnny Truant as mentally unstable; perhaps their ‘illusion’ is a reality that most cannot perceive.

If one individual differs greatly in his perception of what is real, as, for example, Johnny Truant does, they are seen as mentally incapable or unstable. This is where some of the foundations of mental illness come from. There was some discussion about the possibility of mental illness as a diagnosis for Jimmy Corrigan because of his very awkward, anti-social, and isolated behavior. He tends to avoid the world we see as normal reality, instead retreating to his own fantasies. These could be a reflection to the reality he finds within his own mind, not seen by anyone else and therefore very difficult to accept as the truth. The fact that these fantasies are such a large part of his life and no one else’s isolate him from other, prevent connections with those he should be closest to. Johnny Truant’s life seems to fall into disrepair and some might argue he has developed a mental illness from his depression as well. By understanding that his reality has become The Navidson Record, it’s clear this has isolated him from the rest of the world because he is no longer able to share the connection of understanding the reality of others as his own. This analysis of how mental illness develops shows that these characters who seem mentally ill should not be seen as incapable of higher mental functions or socialization. They are not less intelligent than those we perceive to be mentally healthy, but these characters’ realities have shifted from the norm. They live in a world that comes from their own minds, rather than sharing the world many others do.

One major consequence for the projection of the mind into reality in these novels is the structure of the novels themselves. We can look first at House of Leaves, where the architecture of the novel seems almost entirely dependent on what is happening within the story and the minds of the characters. Simply reading the book creates a maze of words. Footnotes reference each other and other sections of the book entirely, the narrative is often scattered throughout the pages, especially during Explorations 4 and 5, where Holloway and his team and then Navidson in turn try to either conquer or understand the house. Certain passages are reflective of the literal physical details of the story, like the sudden scattering of individual words across the page as Jed’s skull is shattered (and his hopes to escape with his life along with it) (194-205), or the climbing of Navidson up the stairs in the depths of the house reflected by the arrangement of words in a way that forces the reader to carefully climb up the page, reading in an almost backwards arrangement of sentences (440-441). Caroline Hagood looks at the architecture of House of Leaves in-depth and the fact that “Danielewski's novel also has an innovative, obviously architectural textual layout that corresponds to its plot and mimics the labyrinthine structure of the house itself,” (Hagood, 2012). She describes the fact that the design and unconventional presentation of the narrative creates the connection between the different characters within the book. We watch Johnny’s life become immersed in House of Leaves by literally reading his autobiographical footnotes within Zampano’s story, often interrupting it and occasionally changing it to fit his own desires. Zampano and Johnny are connected purely by a fictional story, but the consequences of this fiction create a real connection between the two as Johnny becomes more and more immersed in Zampano’s book and life. As Hagood points out, “This suggests that the labyrinth at the heart of the novel is not only a single location that the characters explore, but also a trope for the intricate structural composition of the narratives of each of the "authors," including Truant, Zampano, Danielewski, Navidson, and even Navidson's wife, Karen” (2012). The structure of the novel is both reflective of the internal action of the novel and serves as a way to connect the characters more physically to one another.

This raises an interesting point: I said earlier in an examination of the psychological theories about reality that a common reality was a way to connect different people (or characters) to one another. The structure of the book clearly serves a similar purpose by creating physical connections. If these two details together are what establish connection between Navidson, Zampano, Johnny, and others, this shows that the architecture in House of Leaves is really a reflection not only of the physical happenings within the story but a manifestation of the mental processes for the characters. The realities that exist within the minds of the characters are truly reflected in their surroundings as the book takes on the characteristics of these realities. The idea of reality and illusion does not just exist within the minds of characters, but within the pages of the book itself, creating illusions for the reader as well. A book composed of internal thoughts is not only a maze in and of itself, but creates a sense of mistrust, as every whim of a characters mind could be reflected in the story. At one point, Johnny points out that he decided to add a word to the story (changing “heater” to “water heater”) in order to properly segue into his footnote. It’s impossible to guess what other words, phrases, or pages Johnny could have changed. He restores sections Zampano wanted crossed out for the purpose of preserving what Zampano left behind, but in doing so he creates fundamental changes in the story. We can’t take Zampano’s work for the truth either, despite the fact that Johnny eventually comes to see it that way. The careful footnotes and references Zampano makes are entirely a reflection of his own mind, and probably of the reality that exists within it. The dark world that his blindness forced him into could have brought about the creation of a story revolving around darkness and absence. In the end, the world created by the narrators in House of Leaves is built from the labyrinth of their minds, leaving the reader wondering where the line can be drawn between reality and fantasy.

The line between those two is just as blurry in Jimmy Corrigan. Ware constantly shifts between Jimmy’s fantasy and Jimmy’s reality, with hardly any transition to distinguish between the two. At one point we even realize that Jimmy’s fantasies can have a physical impact on reality. He wakes up after dreaming of himself as a robot to find himself with the crutch from his dream and an unexplained broken foot. In Bredehoft’s analysis of Architecture, Multidimensionality, and Time within Jimmy Corrigan, he looks especially closely at the cut-outs that appear in two places within the story. He writes that these cut-outs show the way the book manipulates our normal conceptions of narrative flow and time. By doing this, they manipulate the very structures that hold reality together, bringing the whole book physically closer to illusion. They are certainly not integral to the plot, but they are instead one clear example where the kind of thinking that happens within Jimmy’s head is transferred into the story, interrupting it and even going beyond the two dimensional structure of a book by truly being objects that could be cut from the pages and assembled. The strange transitions and interruptions to the story are completely purposeful and show the physical consequences of Jimmy’s life of illusion. His life is often dull, depression, and awkward, but his fantasies are always dramatic and exciting. For him, the world within his mind is the better one to be in. To the outside world, he may seem anti-social and even seem mentally ill, but the subjectivity of that analysis can be put to the test when looking at the fact that Jimmy has a different, private, reality within his mind, a topic looked at in the psychological analysis of reality by Cassimatis. Some might write off the idea of a personal reality as proof of mental disability – he is only truly living in his own world, in his own head. Yet, the physical consequences are there. The world he creates in his head comes to the third dimension with the cut-out zoetrope. There are pages and pages of images and text that bring his mental world to life just as much as reality is brought to life in the pages beside it. So while he is certainly lost among others because of his inability to accept their realities and connect with them, he is not any less capable than them. He has create a world just as rich, even if it only exists privately.

It seems almost impossible to speak objectively about reality and illusion. Through the analysis of the dichotomy and coexistence of these two concepts in House of Leaves and Jimmy Corrigan, we can better understand that they are far more intertwined than they seem to be. The house seems like an impossible reality. It is physically larger (by a lot) on the inside than the outside. It somehow reflects the psychological state of those who enter it. But it is a reality for those who enter, those who are lost within it, those who die because of it. The house is physically represented in the pages of the book itself through black spaces and dark squares and a physical maze of words. It therefore becomes a part of the collective reality of those who read it and connections are created between minds based on a physical impossibility. Johnny Truant is certainly obsessive and his paranoia stems from the illusion he lives in, but looking at it now it needs to be noted that he cannot be judged as someone mentally incapable of existing in the real world, simply because he lives in a different world than others. He does not share their reality and so he is dismissed. In the novels these ideas are supported by the physical reflection of private realities in the architecture of the book, but outside of fiction there may not be such physical manifestations. Reality is truly subjective, and a better understanding of that concept could foster a better understanding of how we define mental illness. 

Works Cited

Aguirre, Manuel. The Closed Space: Horror Literature and Western Symbolism. Manchester. Manchester University Press, 1990. Print.

              

Ball, David M., and Kuhlman, Martha B., eds. Comics of Chris Ware. Jackson, MS, USA: University Press of Mississippi, 2010. Print.

               

Bredehoft, Thomas A. "Comics Architecture, Multidimensionality, and Time: Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth." MFS Modern Fiction Studies 52.4 (2007; 2006): 869-90.

Cassimatis, Emmanuel G. "Reality." Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis 28.4 (2000): 717.

               

Danilewski, Mark Z. “House of Leaves.” New York: Pantheon Books, 2000. Print.

                

Hagood, Caroline. “Exploring the Architecture of Narrative in House of Leaves.” Pennsylvania Literary Journal (4:1) Spring 2012, 87-97,140.

              

Ware, Chris. Jimmy Corrigan: the Smartest Kid on Earth. New York: Pantheon Books, 2000. Print.

Final Project: Blake

Blake’s Disjunctive Work and His Political Views

There a many alternative ways to protest or question actions of the government other than having protests; one happens to be through poetry. William Blake grew up during a time of change and development in Europe. This influenced many works he completed including Poetical Sketches completed in 1783 and America, a Prophecy completed in 1793. While his previous works are more straight forward expressing his political views, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience contrasts his previous work. Songs of Innocence and Experience creates ambiguity between the imagery and text. The ambiguity and undertones in his work, specifically, his poem London, NURSES SONG and The Chimney Sweeper, which all rely in Songs of Experience reveal his political views of the time. 

The poems in Songs of Experience have a collective darker tone in contrast Songs of Innocence, and naivety of them. Blake creates this ambiguity through these collective poems by creating tones of imprisonment and victimization through the content and language. The combination of the language, repetition of words emphasizing and dramatizing the pain is evident throughout these works, however the actual image and what is represented questions the disparity the poem shows. However the combination of the presence of youth and warm coloring in the image creates a disjunction between Blake’s words and imagery. This ultimately causes ambiguity between the text and the imagery, showing the disjunction of the people and government during this period. In other words Blake is giving undertones of his political views and influences during the time through his work.  

            First looking at Blake’s poem London, it has four stanzas, and halfway through the poem Blake’s focus changes. The first part creates a feeling of suffocation, an inability to escape. His focus then shifts to personalize and universalize the victims, (the people) of London. In the second stanza there are three lines where there is a repetition in the language emphasizing these tones the poem creates. 

“In every cry of every Man,

In every Infants cry of fear,

In every voice: in every ban,”

Blake makes this sense of suffocation universal by making it broad and impersonal by showing there is a sense of low morale throughout the entire people of London. The word “every” universalizes the actions in each phrase, and the simplicity of the language makes no room for questioning this despair. In addition he uses the words “man” and “infants” showing this darkness effects everyone. To emphasize this, the last of the second stanza states, “mind forg’d manacles” alluding to the enslavement of infants. There is an overall feeling of suffocation in London because everyone is suffering. Additionally Frank Smitha who researched Britain in the mid seventeen hundreds states in his work, “With the rise in Britain's commerce, London had become a busier place and had been gathering more people from England's rural areas and from Scotland, Wales and Ireland. London also had migrants from Germany, Holland and France. London had become a great center for the arts and fashion” (Smitha). After reading his statement seeing that the population in London is growing, and becoming a more populated city, it seems that Blake’s poem London is what he is seeing due to the influx of the population on a broad scale. Additionally while Smitha talks about London in a positive way being “a great center for the arts and fashion,” the problems of the city are not mentioned in his work. Blake brings out these problems inhabited by many people of the city. 

            Blake goes on in the last two stanzas changing his focus to personalizing the victimization of the people of London. His focus changes here to personalizing from “every” to giving specific examples of how the people of London suffer. Specifically, looking at the children, in the third stanza it is said,

“How the Chimney-sweepers cry”

The allusion of the slavery is now tangible, exposing the mistreatment of children during this time.  Although the reader cannot easily vision these people, Blake emphasizes their emotions. Additionally he is making a reference to another poem in Songs of Experience, The Chimney Sweeper. In this poem there is a line and it states,

“They clothed me in the clothes of death,

And taught me to sing the notes of woe…”

“…Who make up a heaven of our misery.”

Clothes of death and notes of woe reveal more specifically these chimneysweepers were put in high-risk conditions where an early death was evident. Even in the last line of the last stanza God is referred to, knowing that heaven awaits him. There is nothing uplifting about this poem besides the thought that heaven awaits. Blake continues to personalize his poem London in the fourth and final stanza as well articulating,

“Blasts the new-born Infants tear

And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse”

While many celebrate a newborn child and are overjoyed, this is a stark contrast of what one would expect. The use of the word “tear” shows the unhappiness that this child was brought into this world, the misery the mother has will soon be shared by the child. The word “plague” is associated with death, and here it is as if the child has entered or been introduced to their death. There is no hope for the child in this world he or she was brought into and Blake depicts this through the small selection of words he has used.

            Blake makes his point of the injustice that occurred in London through his poem, fully describing the dirt, disease and death throughout it. There was a great emphasis on the children as well, and in the International Handbook on Juvenile Justice supports the atrocities committed onto the youth. Blake published Songs of Innocence and Experience in 1789. London in the late 1700’s was not an ideal place for children to grow up. For example in the International Handbook on Juvenile Justice: Chapter 6: England it is stated that, “In 1735, a 10-year old girl was an apprentice stole some money and was sentenced to die (Radzinowicz, 1948). Radzinowicz notes that 18 of the 20 people executed in London in 1785 were under the age of 18. Although rare, there are recorded instances of older children being executed well into the 1800’s. Young offenders under the age of seven could, then receive lenient treatment” (Hirschel Wakefield 93). This statement shows clear evidence of events that occurred during this time Blake was writing. Even though it does not show the poverty taken place in London during the time, it shows the injustices that were done onto children. It shows that Europe’s youth was working and there were reasons that the children needed to work and steal from those in their communities.

            Additionally in Songs of Experience, NURSES SONG,  the nurse, who is the speaker expresses bitterness and misfortune, giving the children no voice. Blake writes,

“Your spring & your day are wasted in play,

And your winter and night in disguise.”

She is unable to find happiness watching the children, showing the bitterness she feels using the word “wasted,” but also knowing what is ahead for them in their future, which is not a bright one. Winter and night are associated with darkness, and lack of life revealing that their futures are not a bright one.

Blake’s work London, supported by The Chimney Sweeper and NURSES SONG,  confidently shows the darkness and despair that took place during this time. While some of the physical features in the imagery, shown in the poem London, support this struggle, the use of children and color question the darkness Blake displays. First, looking at the top of the image one sees an elderly man walking through the night with a small child. The body language of the two obviously shows the misery. The man physically looks exhausted and helpless, slumping over, reflecting how Blake described the people of London in the poem. However it is interesting that the child instead of looking miserable like the elderly man is looking up at him into the light, reaching out for the old man almost a if the child is reaching for hope. In addition the young boy is painted in green, which is associated with growth and youth. It is as if the boy is yearning to protect the elderly man, and provide him with the warmth he has lost but the boy still has. The coloring and lighting is important in this image because when reading the poem one would expect the image to be more dark, powerful and disturbing but that’s not what is presented here. The warm browns, orange and red throughout the painting contrast the darkness of the poem. In addition the light shinning in on the image takes up the majority of space, leaving only the corners with dark shadows makes me wonder if Blake is trying to portray that light overpowers darkness. This particular image coincides with and reinforces the image below.

            The image below displays a young boy kneeling next to the fire for warmth. The boy is obviously cold and is in need of the warmth and protection. However the boy is painted in gold, which is associated with triumph and wealth. If Blake is so cynical towards the situation in London during this time why is this young boy painted gold. It seems counteractive to the language in the poem. In addition the use of a young boy is causing disjunctively with the poem just stating the awful lives children have. The boy could be struggling to find that warmth and protection, to overcome this darkness. The child is facing the light, which has warm reds, oranges and blues. The strokes look soft and full of body, contrasting something that could be hard and rigid like the dark times the poem was referring to.

Additionally the image in NURSES SONG, shows the nurse brushing the young girls hair, one can tell the nurse is handling this job delicately by the placement of her hands and head tilt towards the young girl. The whole scene looks graceful and bright. Even the young girl in the background has her head tilted, looking relaxed while reading a book. Additionally the girls are wearing green, and the plants that border the image are green and flourishing. Just like the boy in London, there is a sense of hope and growth portrayed in the children.

However the image in The Chimney Sweeper holds a darker tone. The entire image is shades of blue, and while the setting shows the boy out in the rain headed towards darkness, his body language is similar to the boys in the poem London. It is important to note that he was alone, working as a chimney sweeper, one was on their own and isolated from the outside world. He is looking up and into the distance, most likely looking at the storm but he is not frowning, in fact he is almost smiling. It is interesting that he does not look sad or frightened, because the reality of the situation did not have a positive outlook. Besides from chimney sweepers there were other high-risk for sickness jobs. The British Library Board states about the poor in London during the mid seventeen hundreds, “‘mudlarks’ of both sexes and all ages waded thigh‐deep in the filthy toxic Thames mud to retrieve anything they could sell. Dogs’ turds could be collected and sold to the tanneries to help create leather. Discarded cigar butts could be recycled and marketed as new” (The British Library Board). Sickness was all over London during this time, and could have been avoided but was the only source of money for the poor. People who dealt with dog turds and used cigar butts were bound for sickness and infection, showing that chimneysweepers were not alone in these harsh, death bound jobs. This disjunction between reality and conflicting ideas of what Blake presents in attention to why he does this.

Blake connects all three of the poems imagery through color and the body language of the children. By doing this Blake reveals that even though the situation in London is awful and he is cynical about the current state something needs to change. It is apparent that Blake has some hope for London’s future, because he would not create the disjunctively between the words and imagery for no reason at all. Blake is bringing and causing the readers attention to the current political situation.

            The Purpose of his poetry and creating his imagery is to relay a message or learn something from it. Blake’s entire book Songs of Innocence and Experience, specifically his poem London, with supporting poems The Chimney Sweeper and NURSES SONG  has many political undertones due to the fact there is endless disjunctivity and ambiguity present. The time period, and the place Blake was surrounded by would define him as a reformer. One incident discussed in The Poetry Foundation,  reveals that events around him influenced his views and writings,

“One incident at this time affected Blake deeply. In June of 1780 riots broke out in London incited by the anti-Catholic preaching of Lord George Gordon but also by resistance to continued war against the American colonists. Houses, churches, and prisons were burned by uncontrollable mobs bent on destruction. On one evening, whether by design or by accident, Blake found himself at the front of the mob that burned Newgate prison. These images of violent destruction and unbridled revolution gave Blake powerful material for works such as Europe (1794) and America (1793)” (The Poetry Foundation).

Although Blake dedicated other material to outwardly express his political views, Songs of Experience was written within in the same years. He was actively involved in defying the government,  and additionally The British Library wrote an article about him. It stated, “Blake’s view of philanthropic responses to poverty was probably always ambivalent. The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 gave a new political urgency to his views. In London a range of new radical groups emerged, demanding major changes to the political system” (Lincoln). While The Poetry Foundation shows that Blake’s actions influenced his work, The British Library shows that events spurred an urgency in Blake to act on his experiences.   This supports and explains why the imagery in Blake’s work questions the words he says, and solidifies that light overpowers darkness. This undertone of light reveals that Blake believed London needed a political reform and that is why he created this disjunctive work His literal words show the lack of freedoms and suffocation and pain the people of London face but his imagery is about overcoming this struggle. Reformists of this time, including Blake went against traditional church thought and their great influence in society. Instead their beliefs supported civil liberties and fought for greater democracy. Therefore Blake’s Poem London, The Chimney Sweeper and NURSES SONG is simply shedding light to the social injustice that occurred and revealing the atrocities that were committed onto London’s own people. London shows how the Church and State failed their people. Blake shows this through the feelings of suffocation and victimization of the people. Blake’s imagery of the children relays that his people are suffering, and struggling but the colors and analysis show that there can be a brighter future with freedoms but reform and revolution needs to take place.

            Much of Blake’s work in Songs of Innocence and Experience is ambiguous, but this ambiguity is the key and insight into his political views without him being blunt. His work states and exemplifies the hardships the people of London face every day. However his imagery counteracts what is written. It physically shows the struggles, but his use of innocent children and color create the possibility of a brighter future. Blake did this to shed light on the injustice occurring in London. Blake himself became a reformist through the experiences he had, including witnessing a mob, and seeing the backlash from the French Revolution. As a reformist he specifically vocalized his negative views toward church and state through his works of Songs of Innocence and Experience. He hoped for reform and revolution but it was only possible if people vocalized their views, and so he did in his work, and played his political role.

Works Cited

Hirschel, J. David, and William Wakefield. "Chapter 6: England." International Handbook on Juvenile Justice. By Donald J. Shoemaker. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1996. N. pag. Print.

Smitha, Frank E. "Britain in the Mid-1700s." Britain in the Mid-1700s. Smitha, 2001-2014. Web. 01 Dec. 2014. <http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/h29-fr.htm>.

The British Library Board. "Health and Hygiene." Health and Hygiene. The British Library Board, n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2014. <http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/georgians/health/hygiene.html>.\

The Poetry Foundation. "William Blake." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, 2014. Web. 22 Nov. 2014. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/william-blake>.