The Tale of Despereaux (vol. I)

The great pastor and civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once remarked, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” I think that this quote captures what is at the heart of Kate DiCamillo’s The Tale of Despereaux. Throughout the novel, DiCamillo uses the imagery of light and dark to symbolize the different forces at play. Indeed, I think that these forces are the exact ones spoken about by Dr. King. The light and the dark have residence in the halls of the castle and in the dungeon (respectively). Those who live in the light wrestle against the darkness within their own hearts. Lester wrestles with condemning his son to death and the king wrestles with the darkness of deep sorrow. Nevertheless, the light is home to characters with great capacities for love and forgiveness like Despereaux and Princess Pea. In contrast, the dungeon is a place where individuals wrestle to salvage the little light with exists in their souls. Roscuro struggles with his desire to live in the light while the dungeon prisoner wrestles with his past evils hoping for the day he could make right. In addition, characters like Botticelli are happy in their world of hate. In the end of the novel, we truly see the words of Dr. King coming true for the characters. Roscuro is defeated and in a way redeemed not by the returning of hate by Princess Pea but by the act of love. Lester is able to escape from the burden of guilt by Despereaux’s act of forgiveness. While unusually small, Despereaux’s ability to cast great light makes him a true knight in shining armor.

The Alchemist (vol. II)

Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist is certainly a bildungsroman. In the beginning of the work, Santiago is a shepherd who dreams of travelling. Indeed, he thinks that “the possibility of having a dream come true…makes life interesting” (16). However, he never imagines that pursuing his Personal Legend will lead him on such a great adventure in which he travels many miles. In fact, in the beginning of the work Santiago does not even understand what a personal legend is or how to follow it. Nevertheless, his curiosity and courage lead him into a world of discovery. Santiago learns that each person has a Personal Legend written by the hand of God which is bound and intertwined with the personal legends of all created things. Santiago’s journey teaches him that he is one thread in the larger tapestry of the universe. However, his journey is not an easy one and it is filled with obstacles he must overcome. But these obstacles serve as a refining fire which burns away the impurities of fear and disbelief to leave the pure matter of love and faith. Indeed, it is the pursuing of one’s dreams that is the true alchemy of the universe. True alchemy turns a normal soul living in the mundane to a soul of gold living a personal dream. Santiago’s journey develops him from a shepherd in Spain dreaming of a better life to a man in touch with his soul and living out his personal legend.

The Alchemist (vol. I)

Two quarters and a dime jingled in her pocket as she juggled the last bit of savings in her pocket. She was a small town girl who had put herself through college to make it to the big city. But her travelling companion, her best friend, had given up and gone back to Mississippi. She had no job, no friends, no money, and only a dream. She figured she had two options: Accept she can’t make it and go home or refuse to give up on her dream. I’m here today because my mother didn’t go home. I’m here because every time in my parent’s lives as individuals and as a couple they never gave up. My parents, and all of my family really, have passed on their tales of dreams won and lost. The pain of never trying and the joy of success were all recounted to me as a child. So I harmonize a great deal with Coelho’s work as it is a story I have heard many times over. My father tells tales in which he points out markers where he felt God opening a door, closing another, or simply providing hope. These are the lessons which are taught to the boy in The Alchemist. He learns about the importance of following one’s dreams and the sorrow that comes with never pursuing them. Coelho seeks to demonstrate the power that comes to individuals willing to chase their dreams. Ultimately, the journey taken by the boy teaches him that life is an adventure laid out before us by God, written by the author of love that we may find life and life to the full.

The House on Mango Street (vol. III)

Sandra Cisneros work, The House on Mango Street, is certainly a bildungsroman. At the heart of the book is Esperanza’s journey to forge her own identity and come to terms with her situation. Esperanza’s story covers many issues of self-discovery but they all revolve around the idea of self-actualization or realizing her full potential. Esperanza views herself as possessing the same powerful, restless spirit that her great-grandmother possessed. But her great-grandmother was taken away by her great-grandfather and she spent her life sitting by the window “sorry because she couldn’t be all the things she wanted to be” (11). Even Esperanza’s first steps into coming to terms with her emerging sexuality are viewed through the lens of self-actualization. She desires to be the woman with the red lips who drives men crazy because her power is her own (89). Esperanza dreams of leaving Mango Street because she believes it is holding her back and is not the final destination for her. But as the three sisters tell Esperanza, it is our past which shapes us to pursue our dreams in the future. Our background provides us strength to create a new reality for ourselves and leave the cycle of people who live in sorrow by the window. Our past creates the soil in which we develop roots which help us to reach out from the concrete like the four skinny trees outside the Cordero house on Mango Street.

The House on Mango Street (vol. II)

One of the parallels I drew between two characters we met this semester was Esperanza and Ike. In The Bear, Ike’s encounters with nature help him to develop a sense of identity and provide the virtues which will guide his future decisions. The revelations concerning his family’s troublesome past force Ike to wrestle with the legacy left to him. Ike understands who he is but now must decide whether his future will follow in the footsteps of his family or if he must brave a new path entirely. A similar path must be forged by Esperanza in The House on Mango Street. Esperanza finds herself in a community of individuals who are enslaved by their own feelings of shame and who live in the shadows of broken dreams. All around her are women filled with great passion but who have been hauled off to live a life staring out a window. But Esperanza, like Ike, decides to reject the inheritance passed down to her in order to forge a new identity. An identity marked by the same strong virtues of pride, courage, and humility that Ike discovered in the wilderness.

The House on Mango Street (vol. I)

Human beings are a unique species in their vast ability to learn. Which is to say that humans readily change their behaviors or thinking patterns based upon new experiences. In many ways, that’s what humans are: a summation of experiences. Throughout a person’s life they weave together a quilt of life made of threads of experiences. Funny though, that sometimes we are so unwilling to participate in sowing. Indeed, this is precisely what is at the heart of Ciseneros’ work: a young girl attempting to forge an identity in a world she doesn’t want to belong to. In ways I could relate to the work as a child who spent my entire life moving from place to place. Each time reaching back to something previous to find identity. “No I’m not from Iowa or even like it, I’m from Texas,” I would say. But then after a while you wonder how much you can relate to where you came from. My grandparents were first generation Americans so if I went to Mexico I’m a “gringo.” We are people without a home. Travelers who are forced to find our identity in the travelling, in the struggle. While I’d never consider myself a Yankee or even Southern (there is the Republic of Texas and everybody else), I cannot deny that my time in the North shaped me. These experiences some good, some bad, some I’d like to forget have all become a part of who I am. Esperanza has to mature to understand the same and embrace the experiences on Mango Street as a part of who she is, something that goes deeper than where she came from.

Life of Pi (vol. III)

Yann Martel’s The Life of Pi is a certainly a bildungsroman. Pi has all kinds of adventures before ever setting out on his tragic voyage. Pi explores the world of religion in search of ways to commune with the divine because he loves God. We watch as Pi begins to develop a concept of religion based upon the principle of love. A wild sort of love which takes from everywhere and is very uncomfortable for those of my tamed religious observance. Then there is, of course, the 277 days on the life boat in which Pi must wrestle with some major issues. The first is simply mustering the will to survive. Martel writes, “I would have given up—if a voice hadn’t made itself heard in my heart. The voice said, “I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare” (148). Drifting through the Pacific, Pi must learn not only to survive but to tame a tiger as well in order to continue living. His reflections on fear and human existence are incredibly insightful. At the end of the story (or perhaps the beginning the way Martel structured the work), Pi becomes a wise man whose soul has lived through its darkest night and whose eyes have seen both the dreams and nightmares of reality.

Life of Pi (vol. II)

The great musician Elwood Blues once remarked before a show, “Remember people that no matter who you are and what you do to live, thrive and survive; there still some things that make us all the same. You, me, them, everybody…everybody needs somebody to love.” Indeed many of the great minds in history would agree that humans deeply desire to love and to be loved. Martel even refers to love as “the founding principle of existence” (63). Truly, love seems to be essential to the building blocks of what it means to be human. Those who express vast amounts of love we call saints and those who are devoid of love we call monsters. Yet we hold love even higher still, at times referring to it as a force which binds and intertwines all things. The fact that I can express love and receive love connects me with those around the globe who can do the same. Thus, humans swim in an ocean being rocked back and forth by the movement of the currents as they love and are loved. Love must be a terribly difficult thing for an agnostic then. Love requires hope in something invisible, faith in something intangible, and the belief in something unproveable. To explore the tragedy of never daring to plunge into the depths would require far more than one blog but I think Martel says in best in describing it as lacking imagination and missing the better story (64).

Life of Pi (vol. I)

Yann Martel describes the story in the author’s note as one “that will make you believe in God” (x). Throughout the novel, I had this tagline in my mind as I searched to find the moment when it all came together. However, I found it so subtle that I nearly missed it entirely. Pi tells two stories to the investigators from the Japanese Ministry of Transport: one with animals and one without animals. At the end of the second tale, Pi asks the investigators which one they think is better story. When the investigators respond that the story with the animals is the better one, Pi replies, “Thank you. And so it goes with God” (317). Reality can be a terrible place filled with pain, loneliness, fear, suffering, and hopelessness. In such a world, a purely rational examination of the facts might lead us to believe that our existence is devoid of any higher meaning. Pi suggests that this is one of the reasons we need the notion of God and the supernatural: to give us hope so that life is livable. If I can believe that there is a higher purpose to my life, that death is not the end, then I might have enough hope to hold on. But without God, without the idea of something beyond our current suffering, we can easily lose our souls to pain and give up on life. I think we can rephrase Pi’s question to the investigators in this way in light of his response: Do we prefer a universe with God or a universe without God?

Going After Cacciato (vol. III)

While I enjoyed reading Tim O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato, I personally would not consider it a bildungsroman. A bildungsroman must contain an essential element which Cacciato does not have: the growth of the main character. Paul Berlin experiences a great deal in Vietnam, both real and fictional, but he himself is never truly shaped by these events. The character Sarkin Aung Wan identifies his problem when she remarks, “Thinking…You are afraid to do…All your fine dreams and thinking and pretending…no more thinking, Spec Four” (297). Paul Berlin is terrified of death and of the idea of facing his own demise. Indeed, Berlin wishes to face death only when he is old and feeble (167). As a result, Berlin constantly uses imagination as an escape from the harsh realities of the war. During the night march with Lt. Martin, “He [Berlin] was pretending he was not in the war…he was pretending he was a boy again, camping with his father in the midnight summer along the Des Moines River” (209). Berlin’s escapism is never something he overcomes or matures out of. In fact, even after he is taken off of patrol duty and given a position on the observation post Berlin still uses his imagination to escape into another world (287). Although he is a likeable character, from his first patrols to his last shift on the observation post, Paul Berlin remains throughout the novel as a character fleeing from fear.

Going After Cacciato (vol. II)

I found Pr. Randal O’Brian discussion about man’s terrible love of war particularly fascinating. Indeed, one might easily few the rise and fall of civilizations throughout history as an expression of humanity’s desire to conquer. Humans possess a terrible lust to extend their dominion over everything. Anthony Hopkins in the movie Instinct says, “We have only one thing to give up. Our dominion. We don't own the world. We're not kings yet. Not gods. Can we give that up? Too precious, all that control? Too tempting, being a god?” The desire to control can lead men to create Hell on earth, a state we refer to as war. In war, human relationships are torn apart and the evil which exists in all men is clearly displayed. Perhaps it is in these moments that hope is most necessary and that hopelessness is so easily fallen into. In war men must either choose to life in a state of escapism (seen in the rampant drug use during the war) or attempt to muster the courage to face the evils. O’Brian was able to choose the latter because of his ever-deepening faith in God. I found it a great testament of his discovery of hope in a dark night of humanity and the insight that perhaps it is precisely then that a man truly understands what it means to cry out for deliverance.