Playing with Power

There is blood, so much blood beneath the polished facade of the Peoples Revoltutionary Council. Blood of the people of Sessamekesh, blood of fellow government officials and most of all, the blood of the royal line. An army uniform is a good hiding place for a snake. And a snake that hides well, in the case of General Citizen and his guards. In the book, Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card, many such snakes hide or come to light depending on the skill and rank of the uniform that is its host. However the thing is, in governments, there are usually many snakes. So what happens when there are too many of these reptilian miscreants in a room? The snakes kill! Behind the analogy of this post and the many subtle metaphors in the book, an underlying theme in Orson Scott Card's creation is the power struggles and revolts within the corrupt structure known as the "people's government. Which is not so aptly named as the "people" do not realized what "their" government was up to.

               One example of this theme is General Citizen. When Rigg is arrested by General Citizen, he begins to trust the solid, clever and almost fatherly figure in his crumbling life. What Rigg doesn't know about General Citizen is where his loyalties lie. This uncertainty and slight vagaries about his general person make Rigg find it hard to believe that the General is totaly on the government's side. It turns out Rigg is partially right about General Citizen, he is actually working with Rigg's mother, the former queen Hagia Sessamin, to overthrow the People's Government and return the royals to power in Sessamekesh. After finding this out, Rigg trusts Hagia and Citizen and this turns out to be his downfall. Already the corruption of youth and not only government is apparent in the book: a boy cannot trust his mother because of the power struggles in the government. Rigg has been through so much in his life, but this still takes him by surprise, although he does not say this outright. As the male heir to the royal throne he expects some plotting towards him, but not the backstabbing of his own mother. Up until this moment Hagia's actions have seen maternal and she has expressed the desire to become a "true mother." But Hagia bearly knows Rigg so she justifies her actions as secluded from her hormones. I think that Rigg's mother is drunk with the idea of ruling the empire so she forgets her love for family and exchanges it with a lust for power,   a common theme that the royal house has fallen for for. Their possesions have been taken from them, they are at the mercy of the common people. No wonder Hagia Sessamin wants to break out.

                 Correlating with this fictional government, common theme in historic governments has been power struggles.I compare this book to the movie J. Edgar. As much as this movie is, obviously, about the head of the FBI himself (J. Edgar Hoover), it is also a movie about political manuevers, personal and proffesional relationships and the thirst for power that encompasses almost all of us. This is evidenced as General Citizen and Hagia Sessamin are supposedly in love, which is why Hagia chose him to lead the revolt.  This correlates with the relationship between Hoover and his assistant Clyde Tolson as depicted in the movie. Is it romantic? Political? There are many disagreements about these two men, but one thing is certain. Their relationship affected Hoover in some way and his politics which sparked controversy and much criticism. In my opinion, I think that you know you are in trouble when leaders make important decisions based on personal relationships.

Power is a huge player in any organization or even family. Who holds the power, what they do with it and how are all extremely crucial to any group. This is why the power struggles in Pathfinder are such a huge part of the book. In a corrupt government, power is the chief prize. Hagia and Citizen both hope to gain power and Rigg is caught up in the middle. I guess there is always power to be taken, but it is you who must decide whether to use it for good or bad.

Power: Poetry by Martin Espada

“Power changes everything.” Says Libba Bray in her book, “The Sweet Far Thing.”  Martin Espada’s poems agree. In Espada’s works, “New Bathroom Policy at English High School,”  “Revolutionary Spanish Lesson,” and “Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz California May 3, 1877,” power is a recurring theme. To the subjects of the poems, it is their security, their identity and their morality. As this theme threads though all of the poems, Espada is trying to communicate the effects of power on humans, their relationships with each other, and even with death.

Martin Espada speaks of power and authority in his poem, “New Bathroom Policy at English High School.” The poem first speaks of a group of boys talking openly in Spanish in their school bathroom while, unbeknownst to them, their principal sit in a toilet stall. Just Espada specifying the man’s rank over the students, making who has the authority clear, establishes a power dynamic. When the principal hears his name, he doesn’t understand the context of it, but it vexes him, as Espada says, “it constipates him.” The reason the principal feels so antagonized by this is that the boys have taken away his power over them. “The only word he recognizes/is his own name,” and therefore he has lost the power to understand what they are saying or what they think of him. He is afraid of this and the loss of power makes it so he feels repressed and insecure in his own authority. To “relax” he must regain his control and power by flexing the muscles of his authority, deciding to “ban Spanish/in the bathrooms.” Only now can he relax. Authority is a necessity in this poem.

            Power features heavily again in Martin Espada’s, “Revolutionary Spanish Lesson.” The poem describes the subject’s reaction to when someone mispronounces his name. He wants to “comb his beard to a point,” and “push his beret at an angle.” In other words look like the Spanish revolutionary icon from Cuba, Che Guevara. He wants to hijack a busload of Midwestern republican tourist and force them to chant in Spanish. Although some may see this as a gross overreaction, it is a power trip.  When people mispronounce your name, especially one evocative of your heritage and culture (as I believe the subject’s is because of the title of the poem, “Revolutionary Spanish Lesson.”) it is taking away the power you have over your identity and the power your culture holds. The subject in this poem wants to re-establish the authority he has over who he is and the power his culture holds in the world by forcing those stereotyped as most ignorant (Midwestern republicans) to acknowledge his culture and identity. He takes away their power.

            “Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz California May 3, 1877” describes exactly what it is titled- a terrible slaughter set back when such atrocities were common. When even jail held no power over the self proclaimed vigilantes- a group of citizens who take the law into their own hands. In the 1800s, still a time of brutal racism, vigilantes had the ultimate power, as Espada shows. Each stanza starts with “more than,” leading the reader to understand that “more than” all of the horrible details of the deaths of the Mexicanos, was what happens in the last stanza (the only one that does not begin with “more than.”). The last stanza describes how what “remain”s are the murderers, who crowd “into the photograph” they have taken to commemorate the event. The vigilantes have clearly held the power throughout the poem, but now they take away even the power that death has. They refuse to acknowledge the atrocity by taking the photograph, making the deaths secondary to the camaraderie. Power is solely theirs in Martin Espada’s poem.

            Throughout Espada’s “New Bathroom Policy at English High School,”  “Revolutionary Spanish Lesson,” and “Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz California May 3, 1877,” power is the necessity of life and all are susceptible to its lures. Through powerful verse, Espada shows us how most people crave power and go to ends such as killing to have it. But why do humans desire to feel powerful? To control? Maybe it is because we are afraid of what happens if do not have the power, if other people make decisions for us. This is probably why there are dictators or gangs, people like the principal at “New English High School,” willing to do whatever it takes to have power in their hands.

Emma

            I have recently begun reading the book, "Emma" by the celebrated and renowned author Jane Austen. Austen has written many classic novels such as "Sense and Sensibility,""Persuasion" and "Mansfeild Park," to name those most widely known. Reading Jane Austen, or most authors from the time period of the 18th and 19th centuries is a unique experience, so different from the one when I read more recently written novels. Because the book comes from a completely different time period, the vocabulary and terms used in the book such as, "profligate" or "shew" as well as food such as gruel and dances like the quadrille that we are not normally familiar with today. Not only does this effect the reading experience because you have to extrapolate the true meaning from phrases you are unaccustomed to, it transports you into a different time where such words were used and truly absorbs you into the book. Another reason Austen's books are an experience is the rich descriptionary tactics that have been lost, in my opinion, in our modern literature. There are few books today in which you will find pages upon pages of description on a building or landscape or even a person's countenance. The same is true for the long paragraphs of dialogue between characters, our modern language and customs have conditioned us to speak in choppier, shorter turns without the flowery overtures found in Jane Austen's world, although in each there is found vehement expression and colorful languages and slangs of the time. This brings me to another point, how similar and different Jane Austen and our worlds are. Specifically in terms of women's place in society.
               Women as portrayed in Austen's works seem to have a great deal of power in terms of their own affairs and often the affairs of their superiors. Now, I have only read "Pride and Prejudice" and "Emma" out of her books, but both depict father figures or elders of authority who bow to the will and respect the minds of their daughters, albeit sometimes condescendingly. This is evidenced in Mr. Woodhouse (Emma's father)'s description of his daughter, "Emma never thinks of herself, if she can do good to others" and describes her intelligence and talents to anyone who will listen. He admonishes himself to a great degree and seems to put Emma on a pedestal, wiser and cleverer than himself and fit to run his estate and take care of herself all in one. This seemed not to fit with what we know of how past societies thought of women- beneath them and only useful in terms of marriage. This is because of the families' social standing. Richer women often had more say and power than poor women, particularly if the family in question did not have a son. Such is evidenced in the fact that Emma's father did not make her get married, even though she was extremely eligible at age 21, and pretty. Poorer families had to marry their daughters in order to gain better standing in society and often used their female offspring purely as a way to get richer, disregarding their feelings and wishes. In wealthier families the need to get married for money is not as great, and therefor women are given more power and leeway over choice. If Austen had written about less endowed families, then the powerlessness over marriage would have surfaced.
                The ideas of marriage in the teens and early twenties and such powerlessness seems silly today. After all, in this day and age we think women are  equal to men in all ways of the world- but are they? Women still get payed less than men at the same jobs and gender discrimination reigns world wide. I observe this kind of misogamy in school and on television. It seems as though women are "supposed" to be stay at home moms, and if they're not, they're criticized and characterized as being distant and cold towards their children. We have yet to elect a female president and it seems like the only position in the white house America will allow women to hold is the office of "first lady." Further proving my point is the term "slut." When guys have a lot of sex they are "players" and celebrated for their interactions. If a woman has a lot of sex she is labeled a "slut" or a "whore." It seems to me that although society has made some progress in terms of how women are thought of in society, we haven't matured as much from the times of "Emma." In fact, Emma seems to be respect and held in higher esteem than many women today.