Junior Schyler Nutting’s response to a letter in the Conway Daily Sun, published June 2, 2009.
Dear Dr. Morgenstern,
Today I picked up the daily sun and realized that the article you submitted titled “The Death of Shame” was out of line. It is true that in today’s society rudeness is portrayed as an acceptable practice and that in recent years the degradation of moral standards has reached a low. However you chose to single out a generation, blaming it for all of today’s sociological problems and as a 16 year old member of that generation I believe that you made some critical mistakes when writing this article. I was surprised to hear a person defending shame carrying out such an attack upon a large public group. You should realize in that attacking society for its so called lack of shame, you are in turn practicing that very same moral degradation. I find it difficult to translate how you make the distinction that attacking a massive group of individuals is alright as long as you believe that you are above them, instead of “biting your lip” as you put it and keeping your opinion to yourself. And to your points I offer these counterpoints:
•You act as if public lies and other criminal behavior in the government are something new. Since the establishment of any form of rule there has been corruption, no matter what code of moral conduct leaders claim to adhere to. Government is flawed; it will always be flawed no matter what society’s standards are.
Some of the greatest atrocities in Americas history were carried out in the so called “moral golden years” that your refer to, the horrible acts carried out against Americas African population for one was a socially acceptable practice at the time that men and women followed the moral rules, social codes, and styles of dress that you so clearly adhere to, but I cold no more blame you for those incidents for choosing to tuck your shirt in as you could blame them on me for having a facial piercing.
It is not up to you to determine that American customs are the only moral code that is correct.
•Millions of individuals around the world nay billions would think it unheard of to take your hat off in a building for any other reason than convenience. Are they all wrong? In many foreign countries it is considered an extreme insult to look someone in the eyes when speaking to them, and yet along your same moral code it is expected and is considered a sign of respect to do so.
Your next topic is one that touched on a particularly close subject to my heart. The topic of body modification or “mutilation” as you so crudely put. You cite the practices of so called “primitive” tribes and cultures as an example of a lack of shame in American society. This is both extremely offensive and wrong. I have traveled to South America, and in fact an article was published on my travels not too long ago in the Conway daily sun. The notion that these cultures are far below us morally, simply because there spiritual beliefs dictate that they modify themselves in any particular way is ridiculous. American women pierce their ears, why is that not wrong? Every day Americans cut their hair, put on makeup and choose clothes to wear. This is exactly the same form of body modification, and yet this is acceptable by your standards. Why is it so morally wrong to modify yourself in any other form?
It seems sir that your article illustrated a brilliant point, however unintended. The mortifying lack of acceptance in this country is what is tearing us apart. In fact your entire article could be boiled down to merely state that “Conservative beliefs are right and everything else is wrong.” Throughout history atrocities have been carried out because someone believed that they were right and someone else was wrong, these incidents still continue today. Although your initial point that societies moral standards are falling is correct, it is a far cry to say it is the cause of all of today’s sociological problems. Thank you for your time.
-Schyler Nutting
Emilia: An Essay
by Butterfly Dompkowski
Those who have a vague knowledge of Shakespeare’s Othello may not even be aware of Emilia. They recognize the names Iago, Othello, and Desdemona, but not Emilia. Emilia is Iago’s wife; without her, his mad schemes would not have come to fruition, but she is hardly a wiling conspirator of her husband. Amidst a story so believable it’s horrifying, populated by characters twisted by vices and virtues, Emilia stands out as ‘the only sane person in the asylum’ as it were. She is the level-headed older sister among wild children; a human living with aliens; the gateway character; Blind Mag from Repo: The Genetic Opera. Emilia is the only real level-headed human being in the entire play, and she provides much-needed contrast between the extremes of humanity: caricatures of Virtue (Desdemona) and the Devil (Iago.) Her tragedy is all the more poignant because she fails at her purpose in the play: to ground the characters around her. Despite pleading with all three of the main characters (Desdemona, Othello, and Iago) she fails to get their flaws under control, and is thus caught up in ‘the net /that shall enmesh them all.’ (Act 2 sc. iii. Line 352-353)
Where Desdemona is submissive and virtuous, Emilia is outspoken and readily admits that she’d cheat under the right circumstances. The scene where Desdemona and Emilia discuss adultery is very telling of their differences:
Desdemona: Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
Emilia: Why, would not you?
Desdemona: No, by this heavenly light!
Emilia: Nor I neither by this heavenly light;/ I might do’t as well i’ the dark. (Act 4, scene iii, line 65)
Her humorous repartee with Desdemona on the subject of adultery clashes harshly with Desdemona’s refusal to approach the subject with anything but seriousness. Emilia has a rather modern outlook when dealing with the issue of adultery, which only serves to further set her apart from Desdemona, whom she is attempting to coach into being human. She attempts to make Desdemona more human, thinking, perhaps, that if Desdemona had a few flaws of her own, Othello would not so readily jump to the conclusion of his perfect (too perfect, suspiciously perfect) wife was cheating on him. Desdemona is a representation of Virtue at most and a naive child at least, especially contrasted with Emilia: an adult woman and human being. Adultery is unthinkable to Desdemona, but she is accused and eventually murdered because her husband is convinced she’s been cheating; Emilia wholeheartedly attests that she herself would cheat on her husband, if the circumstances were right; her husband suspects she has cheated on him many times and doesn’t seem to care. Emilia even gives a moving speech about how women are equal to men and thus have as much right to have affairs as do their husbands:
Emilia:
Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know
Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell
And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
As husbands have. What is it that they do
When they change us for others? Is it sport?
I think it is: and doth affection breed it?
I think it doth: is’t frailty that thus errs?
It is so too: and have not we affections,
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
Then let them use us well: else let them know,
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so. (Act 4, scene iii, line 92-101)
Giving a secondary character listed in the Dramatis Personae as ‘Iago’s Wife’ a place and time to speak her mind – this speech is almost soliloquy, though Desdemona remains onstage, you get the sense that Emilia is speaking directly to the audience, not to her mistress – is an interesting move for Shakespeare. Was he preaching feminism? In a play that features a man who thinks he’s justified in murdering his wife because he believes she’s been cheating on him, this seems unlikely. Shakespeare seeking to further the contrast between Emilia, the human woman, and Desdemona, the otherworldly being, is a more workable argument. Desdemona’s eventual death is made all the more tragic when you are convinced she is not only virtuous, but the embodiment of Virtue itself. Emilia is no saint or representation of Virtue: she is a practical woman facing facts and dealing with them as best she, a mortal, can. Both are killed, but Desdemona’s death feels more surreal than real, whereas Emilia’s death is far more realistic in its abruptness. Desdemona is too good to be true, but Emilia strikes us as a survivor, whatever the cost. Though Emilia’s bold stance on equality of the sexes is tragically lost in the intrigues of Othello, it remains one of the most natural sounding speeches of the play.
Blinded by jealousy, Othello doesn’t recognize Emilia’s level-headed wisdom even when she’s yelling it in his face. Othello and Emilia have only two scenes alone, but they are powerful in their own rights.
Othello: You have seen nothing then?
Emilia: Nor ever heard, nor ever did suspect.
Othello: Yes, you have seen Cassio and she together.
Emilia: But then I saw no hard, and then I heard/ Each syllable that breath made up between them.
Othello: What, did they never whisper?
Emilia: Never, my lord.
Othello: Nor send you out o’ the way.
Emilia: Never.
Othello: To fetch her fan, her gloves, her mask, nor nothing? (Act 4, scene ii, line 1-10)
Emilia: Never, my lord.
In this scene, Othello is demanding that Emilia give him some modicum of proof that Desdemona and Cassio have been sleeping together. Emilia hotly denies any such activities, and cautions him to think twice about such accusations. However, her pleas fall on deaf ears. Emilia reacts in much the same way as anyone being questioned by a friend about another friend: shocked, but staunchly loyal to the accused. Aghast, she even urges Othello to second-guess himself and review the ‘facts,’ and had she been more insistent, or Othello more reasonable at the time, Igao’s plot might have fallen through right then and there. In Othello and Emilia’s next scene together, Emilia walks in to find Desdemona dying (or already dead, depending on the version) and Othello insisting she cheated on him with Cassio. The repartee that follows brings to mind the speed of the Comedies:
Othello: She turn’d to folly, and she was a whore.
Emilia: Thou does be lie her, and thou art a devil.
Othello: She was false as water.
Emilia: Though art rash as fire, to say/ That she was false: O, she was heavenly true! (Act 5, scene ii, line 135)
Emilia refuses to believe that Desdemona was cheating: it simply could not have happened. Once her anger towards Othello has abated somewhat, and Othello implicates Iago – her husband – in Desdemona’s slander, she repeats “My husband?” three times, the Shakespearean equivalent of a brain freeze. She ends up paying with her life to reveal the truth to Othello: that his wife was chaste. Being the one to reveal this to Othello is a part given, not to Cassio or Iago, but Emilia, a woman, a secondary character, the one who took the handkerchief in the first place! You could say she redeems herself, but really, there were no wrongs to redeem. Emilia was only human; Emilia was also the singular human in the entire play.
Iago brushes Emilia off as a mere pawn in his huge live-action game of chess. He never refers to his wife by name, praises her only once, and demands the handkerchief she stole for him in the same breath as the ‘praise.’ Iago accuses Emilia of cheating on him in public, and suspects that Othello and even Cassio have lain with her “and it is thought abroad, that ’twixt my sheets / He’s done my office” (Act 1, scene iii) and dismisses her coldly when he craves a soliloquy. Emilia takes all of this lying down, but when Othello reveals to her what Iago has been telling him, it takes her all of five seconds to betray Iago. Ordered home by her husband before she reveals his plots, she defies him, her morals overriding her obedience to her husband (which was a big deal in Shakespeare’s time.)
Emilia:
‘Twill out, ’twill out I peace!
No, I will speak as liberal as the north:
Let heaven and men and devils, let them all,
All, all, cry shame against me, yet I’ll speak. (Act V, sc.ii, line 220)
After declaring that heaven and devils can’t keep her silent now (today people would say ‘wild horses couldn’t stop me’) it makes sense that Iago threatening Emilia with his sword and cursing at her does not halt her confession in the slightest (Act V, sc.ii, line 223). Emilia’s horror at Iago’s diabolical scheming – that has resulted in the death of her virtuous mistress, Desdemona – overpowers the submissiveness that was grilled into women at the time, and even her survival instincts. After spending the whole play fighting to humanize the ‘people’ around her, Emilia is fed up and gains some character development of her own, and, tragically, just as she begins to come into her own, she is subsequently killed. The only true human being in the play is murdered, before she even gets to see the results of her sacrifice or reap the rewards of breaking out of her self-imposed community service. Iago ultimately kills Emilia for betraying him, but without her, no one would have ever known the truth behind Othello’s jealous rages and Desdemona’s murder. ‘Honest’ Iago was brought down, not by Othello or Cassio, the men Iago spent the whole play trying to bring down, but Emilia: his honest wife. Throughout the play Iago plays people like violins, but he didn’t realize how fierce his lioness was until he had his head between her jaws.
Though selfless at the end, Emilia is the only real human being in the whole play, and is there to provide contrast to the caricatures of characters in Othello. Her pleas and efforts were too little, too late, to ground the characters before they spiraled out of control, but Emilia had the distinction of fighting to tell the truth in a play populated by schemers and centered around lies and betrayals. Lost in a sea of larger-than-life caricatures, Emilia fought against the tide even when it meant dying for a good cause. Emilia embodies the best (speaking the truth even when it cost Emilia her life) and worst (her willingness to commit adultery) in us humans, and she did it beautifully.
The Road Not Taken
Beth Flood Fairlamb
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no feet had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.
“The Road Not Taken” is a Robert Frost poem that discerningly describes life and the transitions that we all experience in it. It looks especially to the choices which everyone is faced with at some particular points in their life, and by using a straightforward but distinct and engaging metaphor from nature, the poem tells us something very true and significant about ourselves.
The poem begins by creating a clear, crisp image: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.” Already the scene is set, as we find ourselves starting out at a crossroads – in a very real sense as well as a figurative one. This setting immediately speaks of some kind of journey or transitioning that will happen in the poem, which makes the opening line even more striking and effective. The first verse continues on to apprise us of a kind of dilemma: “and sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveller, long I stood,” presenting to us the simple image of a traveller on foot who is unsure of which road to continue walking down. Yet at the same time, the symbol behind this picture is incredibly insightful into human experience: the first verse is primarily saying that there will be many choices in life, some of which will be unclear and difficult to decide on. However, Frost doesn’t make the tone of the poem cynical in any way because of this, instead viewing the choice between his “Two roads” diverging in a “yellow wood” as an opportunity to make a good, or at least fair, decision. As Frost presents us with this natural scene, perhaps he is as well hinting at the idea that the unavoidable choices in life are also natural, and should be considered as such. Furthermore, this opening verse reads so fluidly and clearly that the contrast of the powerful meaning behind it is made even more prominent in the poem. This is something which continues on into the next verse.
The second verse of “The Road Not Taken” brings about a decision by the traveller who is faced with two different roads. In this, the traveller compares the roads with each other: “Then took the other, as just as fair / and having perhaps the better claim / because it was grassy and wanted wear.” With this description, we are told that the two roads are just about the same, but that one has been less explored than the other, or really, that there is a choice between venturing into something new, which could be promising, or sticking to something known or safe. The traveller’s decision is to take the road that “was grassy and wanted wear.” And in the following verse, we see how the traveller views this choice, with a possibly still unsure but doubtlessly positive tone. In this, Frost goes on to bring together a basic truth of life: in saying that we mostly have to be alone in the decisions we make – “And both that morning equally lay / in leaves no feet had trodden black” – but that no matter what, we must keep going, even if there is a chance that we may not get to reconsider our choices. In the poem, the traveller admits as such, “Oh, I kept the first for another day! / Yet knowing how way leads on to way / I doubted if I should ever come back.” The idea here is a very strong one, that through the course of life, it sometimes will not be possible to turn around and make up for the things we didn’t choose to do; that life is contingent only one self-chosen destiny. However, in the last verse, Frost follows up this thought to a firm and heartening conclusion.
In the final verse, the poem partially breaks away from the present moment with a reference to the future and looking back: “I shall be telling this with a sigh / somewhere ages and ages hence.” This gives this last verse a wistful kind of air to it, as if the traveller is almost now weary from life. Yet the last three lines of the poem show and bring together clearly exactly what Frost is really trying to say, which is essentially something very wise and contented: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — / I took the one less travelled by / and that has made all the difference.” These last lines are, for me, the most stirring of the entire poem, as they really confirm the faith that we have to have when we make important choices, because when we do so with reason and intuition, we will usually end up where we want to in life. With these closing lines, Frost is also saying that there is little or no time for regret, and that there is only time to consider the decisions we’ve made and to really look at how they have shaped and changed our lives for the better. This idea smoothly gathers together the extended metaphor of the poem and brings it to a compelling ending, which makes the poem as a whole truly resonate with anyone who reads it for a long time afterwards.
“The Road Not Taken” takes strong images from nature to create an incredibly pointed metaphor about an intrinsic quality of life: that we all must choose between one thing or the other in life. Frost compares two different choices by changing them in his poem into “two roads” while also addressing the risk and yet the beauty of having to make a decision between them both. The main point that Frost makes in “The Road Not Taken” is that the transition before making one choice or the other is often unclear, and points us in no certain direction, but that we should trust ourselves in the actions we do eventually take, as they will ultimately make “all the difference.”
