Portrait of an Artist, by an Artist for an...artist?

I didn't expect to enjoy A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. My only prior experience with the novel was a vague memory of a babysitter with her heavily-lined eyelids falling closed time and time again as she tried to read it on our couch.

But I didn't fall asleep once. I ate up the book in a plush armchair with many glasses of tea in front of our Christmas tree. You see, I feel like Stephen is quite a lot like me at times...and quite a lot like Spock. He is an outsider, a creator, an ARTIST. And it seems artists are often fated to be alone, like Stephen is, adrift without any connection.

Unlike Stephen, I don't feel that this will be my fate. My creation, the heart of my art, may lie in my "treasure" of words, but it also subsists in my passion and interest in people. Because people are what I love, and what informs my art, I don't think I'll ever truly abandon the larger world to be at one with my work. As my family knows all too well, there are times when I prefer solitude, and they are best off slipping quiet notes under my doorway instead of walking into the carnage of my notes and figures.

But I always come out of the room eventually.

So, what can we learn about our big question from Portrait?

1. Not all people THINK they are artists, but all artists are people. Art must come from a very human place, a place of creation and experience and imagination. All people are driven to create, but some take this to the level of ART and others are satisfied with more minor expressions of creativity.

2. Humanity is defined by connections. At the close of the novel, we are left with impressions of humanity that are determined by his connections. We witness his friendships, particularly his affinity to a poorly spoken boy named Lynch, who uses "yellow" as a curse, but it is THIS individual who Stephen reveals his philosophies. We read of Stephen's passion for church and feeling, but his inability to reach a complete union with his muse. We learn about Stephen through Stephen's voice; we recieve a first-hand impression of his humanity.

3. Life without art is hardly life at all for the artist. Stephen cannot exist happily without his passion and his art, his love for words and his role as a detached observer. His life begins with his realization of his life as an artist. It is a fantastic rebirth because he finally lays a true claim to his soul!

Gift o' the Blarney

What can Playboy of the Western World teach us about our big question on identity?

1. The idea of SELF is influnenced by place, people, and circumstance! Christy does not realize his penchant for storytelling or his capability to be a compelling and worthy man in his own right until he is in a new enviornment with new people, under the right circumstances. Under a new moon with a fresh start apart from his old past, Christy is able to showcase his artistic and sensitive sides in an atmosphere that has less scorn. Because people are passionate about him and interested in him, they allow Christy to be passionate and interested in his own qualities.


2. Identity is easily changed, based on perception. Pegeen's love for Christy waxes and wans due to the way he is percieved; he shifts, in her eyes, from a celebrity of sorts to the man who loves her to a common farmer to a playboy!


3. This changing concept of identity must stop and remain constant for the INDIVIDUAL to create a joyful state of being. When Christy finally realizes his own potential to be a storyteller and embraces the idea of roaming and seeing the world, he steps into his own identity and finds happiness, apart from the wills and whims of others' who's opinions had once mattered so much. Conversely, Pegeen succumbs to the pressures of her society, burns Christy's leg, and ultimately loses his love, denying her chance for a life of imagination and love beyond her small town. She does not reach the state of the identity she has always dreamed about, and instead remains trapped and stagnant.

"i (i) nothing (no thing) am (am)."

i
am
nothing
edgar
i
nothing
am
nothingamedgar
edgariedgar
no---thing
i
am

(there
is
method in this madness we are more than we might seem the ripeness is all
LOOK UP MY LORD

bastard
son
i
ll
i
get
i
mate
leg
i
ti
mate
i
edmund
am
nothing
edmund
blood
nothing

my name is EDGAR and i am a
son of Gloucester

my name is EDMUND and i am
the
other
son of Gloucester

born in wedlock

born out of wedlock

i am we are the son THE sons of Gloucester

(cainabelcain the difference of three letters)

bound by blood
and sep(edgar)rat(edmund)d by lack of purity

(no (less in dignity am i edmund no less for the ceremony of my birth) thing)

fatherfatherfatherfather
from my mother
from my mother
why did you
MY mother
why?

the lands the wealth the fame my brother
brother
edmund
brother
mine

legitimate
edgar
legitimate
god smile on bastards
god
my brother

EDMUND
D
G
A
R

the difference of four letters
ededgarmund
why?

life has worth is worth worthwhile suffering is not just pain is not just my father blind
my father
bleeding rings
my father
MY BROTHER
my blood no greater than yours brother
and if it is
it has brought me only pain

blood blood
not enough of it
find me blood legitimate find me blood spilled life blood
my life
not worth a life dirty
bastard son
whoreson
dirty
more
blood
blind the fool
the fool is blind
bloodbloodblood

THE SINS OF THE FATHER
BEGAT
THE SINS OF THE SON

oh edmund, (if you but look up, my brother) my brother
what have you done?

to boldly go where no man has gone before....

For this post, we are going to take a little journey, a journey through time and space, deep INTO space.

I'm talking, of course, about Star Trek.

There is nowhere else in the galaxy where we could find a finer example of identity than on the USS Enterprise. We simply walk on to the bridge, turn to our right, take a few steps, and there he is: the fascinating Mr. Spock.

Science officer and first officer aboard the flagship for the United Federation of Planets, Spock holds a place of huge power and responsibility. He is almost uniformly respected, obeyed, and admired...almost. Spock has two rather noticeable things that set him apart from the rest of the crew: his two pointy ears. These self-same ears, hallmark of his half-Vulcan half-human heritage, place Spock on a different level than any of his human crew members, and Spock becomes the sad proof that, yes, prejudice still exists in the future.

Because the Vulcans revere logic, Spock is logical to the point of coldness, undeniably practical, and pointedly sardonic in his observations of human shortcomings. Although he may respect many beings, he has few friends, and rarely recognizes them as such. He is critical, exacting, and lacks empathetic understanding of many basic human emotions. These qualities make him even more of an "alien" among the all too human crew of the Enterprise. Despite the occassional butting of heads and the periodic alienation of his alien self, Spock is the best at what he does, and feels he could be needed nowhere else as much as on a ship of illogical humans. Loyal, smart, resourceful, determined, brave, and honest, Spock is as good a man as anyone without green blood, and twice as useful for his Vulcan qualities.

It is Spock's quest for self that becomes most interesting when related to our bigger question. Torn forever between two worlds, Spock can be perfectly happy in neither; he is not completely understood by humans and not completely accepted by Vulcans. Spock also faces the struggle between both his primal human side and his native Vulcan logic; unable to fully offer love, but always longing for it, the dark eyes of the second officer often epitomize loneliness, isolation, and the inability to belong. It is this continual struggle to find a balance between warring halves of his identity that make Spock such a useful character study.

So what can we learn from the human Mr. Spock, the vulcan Mr. Spock, and the total entity of our Star Trek friend?

1. It is possible to having two opposing sides of self.


2. It is only by seeking balance between both sides, denying neither, that one can be truly happy.


3. Sometimes this balance must be created and sought after, not easily recieved. The balance for Spock is his only home, the Enterprise itself. Because happiness is elusive on both Vulcan and Earth, Spock seeks a literal middleground in his journey across the universe. This parallels the nature of the island in Shakespeare's The Tempest; sometimes one must seek abroad to find a "great equalizer," a place where all desires can be realized.

Spock says it best himself when he states what all creatures must aim to do, no matter what their crisis of identity may be: "Live long, and prosper."

"make no mistake: you are a doom-born man."

Possibly the single most tragic case of discovering true identity is Oedipus, from Sophocles' good old Oedipus Rex.

For those who don't know, Oedipus is the cursed son of a cursed father, fated to commit patricide and marry his own mother. It really is a sorrowful tale, because Oedipus is guilty of one fatal flaw: he is consumed with a desire to know.

When Oedipus' city of Thebes is ravaged by plague and natural disaster, covered with the misery of thousands of citizens, and consumed with endless suffering, the king begins his quest for answers. Sending a messenger to Delphi to consult a holy Oracle, Oedipus learns that the cause of all the agony of Thebes is that the murderer of the former king Laius still lives. As Oedipus begins to search for the murderer, he also unearths secrets of his own past. The people he thought were his parents were not related to him by any blood ties. A highway altercation with an older, kingly man takes on new sinister meanings. His own wife Jocasta begins to appear...motherly. Still, despite repeated pleadings from all who love him, Oedipus demands the truth. He seeks, with his characteristic unerrring honesty, to know, to understand. His great courage compels him to look into that which he fears, dregging up pain from the past in an effort to right wrongs, save a city, find out who he is.

It is this searching, this continual looking beyond, that ultimately leads to the loss of Oedipus' crown and his ability to look at anything ever again.

So what do we learn from Oedpius that we can use to help us with our big question?

1. We create fate. The fall of the House of Oedipus was foretold by the gods, but it was Oedipus himself, his personality, his drive to know, that ultimately brought about the fall. He crafted his own fate with his own soul.


2. It is vitally important to recognize our strengths and weaknesses as human beings and how to use these strengths and weaknesses, rather than be ruled by them. Oedipus' enormous pride, his temper, his inability to trust others, his incredible impatience: all contribute to his downfall, helped by his better qualities of courage, honesty, and curiousity.


3. To quote another wonderful play, Hamlet: "We know what we are, but not what we may be." There is more (good, bad, ugly, beautiful, powerful, strong, etc) to everyone than meets the eye.

EYE hope you remember that when you think back on Oedipus!

how do we define who we are?

Hey there everyone!

My name is Meghan.

I am five feet, six inches tall.

I love sunflowers and Star Trek and licking cake batter off of wooden spoons and the way broken window glass from old cars looks like freshly sliced diamonds.

I prefer rainy weather.

And I read ravenously.

Except I lied about the six inches part.

I'm actually 5' 5 3/4''. I figure personality (and my copius amounts of curly hair) can make up for the difference.

The reason I'm telling you so much about me is because I am so interested in you! I love people, you see. I like to know what they are thinking and feeling and talking about and what magazines they read on airplanes. Maybe you don't read magazines on airplanes. Maybe you prefer magazines for late at night before you fall asleep. Maybe you only subscribe to Ceramics Monthly and keep a stack of old pages for fuel for your kiln. Maybe you hate all magazines. Heck, you might even hate all pottery! Point is, I am insatiably curious about who you are. I'd also like to know who I am, and who we all are together.

That's my big question.

Who are you?

When I was a little girl, my best friend Chelley and I would sit on my bed with the windows open to let in summer sunlight, surrounded by stacks and stacks of toy animals. We played with stuffed, plastic, felt-covered, ancient, fresh-out-of-the-package; we loved playing with just about any animals. The way to play the game was to put all the animals in the center of the bed, then each take turns picking them until we had little "clans." Then we'd tell the story of the clans.

"Okay, Chell, this is the chief of my clan. His name is Rivereyes. He's the biggest and strongest lynx, but he's gotten a little crazy after all of his battle wounds to the head. And---and---and---nobody really likes him." (I had a bit of a stutter when I was small. I got all excited and couldn't get the words out fast enough.)

Our clans were fascinatingly intricate, with loves and friends and brothers and sisters and secret brothers and sisters and hiding places. There were always the outsiders. There was almost always travel involved. Sometimes, when we were in the mood, we'd create song and dance numbers for the clans. We even videotaped a couple of our best performances on Chelley's old camcorder.

See, from a very young age, I just wanted to know the story. Why was Rivereyes so mean to Hangclaw? Oh, of course---because Hangclaw is his cousin, and next in line for the role as the leader! Why did no one ever go down to the bend in the river anymore? Why did your clan not come to the meeting at the full moon? Why? Why? WHY? Why do you do what you do? Why are you the way you are?

Who are you?

And, most importantly, why?