Throughout both The Aeneid and Iliad these works, each of the main characters are “chosen” by the gods in some way and have gained favor not only because of their birth (the partial sons of gods or goddesses) but also because they are destined to fulfill a certain fate or prove themselves in some other way. This essay will argue that each author’s representation of the gods having a direct influence on he lives of mortals is symbolic of this “glory age” in which each author was trying to capture and it will also explore the ways these two protagonists are different and similar in terms of the societies they are shown to be living in as seen in both works.

The gods in both The Iliad and The Aeneid are shown not only to have a direct hand in the lives of mortals, but also, they are shown to be choosy about who they wish to help. The reasons behind their motivations and decisions isn’t based on any modern Christian notion of who “deserves” to have the honor “Greek religion embraced powers and fears of all kinds. As we have seen, its gods were within the world, one that they did not create. These powers—gods, nymphs, and other spirits—did not die (ordinarily) but were born. The Greek gods had favorite humans and intervened in human affairs, but they did not live within the human heart. They were powerful, but their power had limits.

 All gods, including Zeus, were subject to fate” (Powell 123). The fallibility of the gods is apparent in both works since they are capable of being defeated and they have emotional impulses that drive them to make decisions. They are not represented as being all-powerful, and are prone to vices and nepotism. Although The Iliad and The Aeneid  were written in entirely different eras with different political structures and cultural systems, both Homer and Virgil (as well as their readers) would have had a similar understanding of the gods and these characters. Both pieces were written during times of political and social strife, and this could be part of the reason why both texts, particularly Homer’s (since the Aeneid was written in a corresponding style) are heavily invested in depicting a “golden era” where mighty heroes of war lived long adventures and were aided by the direct hands of the many gods. There are many important quotes from both the Aeneid and Iliad that reflect these themes.

Achilles and Aeneas are similar in the sense that they have received favor from the gods, partially as the result of a sort of “divine nepotism” and also because they stand out from ordinary men because of their military or physical prowess. Both of these from The Iliad and The Aeneid characters are a mix of the two, thus making them worthy to receive the direct contact. Perhaps what is most strange, at least to the modern reader (steeped, whether voluntarily or not) in the traditions of Christianity, is that although Aeneas seems to deserve his gifts, Achilles does not yet has divine favor nonetheless.

While Aeneas is proud, he is not arrogant. He is a warrior, but he has the capacity for great love and sympathy and instead of abandoning his fellow soldiers in a time of need, he rallies them with a moving speech. In these ways he seems to be a hero worthy of the divine intervention and to make an even stronger case for that, he is the direct descendent of a god. Achilles, quite unlike Aeneas, is very aggressive and often without the sympathy or kindness (until the very end) shown by Aeneas. He is quick to react negatively and holds grudges. He is, in many senses, not worthy of what the modern reader might think of as a great person, but he has superhuman strength and is the descendent of a god as well. One cannot help but question why they receive equal intervention, but then again, the gods are seen as fickle and nepotistic in both works, sometimes favoring the wrong cause and proving them to be prone to making bad decisions.

The gods occupy a strange role in the Iliad and the life of Achilles. “The gods do not meet the expectations of the human characters. They do support the Greeks, but for reasons that have nothing to do with morality. They love and they hate, but they never talk about justice. Thus the narrator gives us the impression that Troy must in any case fall, that the Trojans are victims of a power that men, however virtuous, cannot conquer” (Kip 381). In the Iliad, there is a particularly poignant statement made by Ares in regards to his role in the lives of humans when he states in one of the important quotes from The Iliad by Homer, “We everlasting gods . . . Ah what chilling blows/ we suffer—thanks to our own conflicting wills— /whenever we show these mortal men some kindness. (Iliad 5.346-348). It is clear from this statement that the gods realize their failures yet they continue on the behalf of their chosen mortals, Aeneas and in the Iliad, Achilles. Both Homer and Virgil show that the gods are not perfect and that they are capable of recognizing their own faults. In a cultural/religious context, this is a potent statement since it reveals that this is not a society that believed in the ultimate righteousness of their gods, but rather knew that they were prone to same fallacies of mortals. Keeping this in mind is important in the analysis of the two protagonists of each texts since many of their actions are based on these gods’ wills and decisions. While they may react differently (Aeneas with submission and Achilles with rage and defiance) the fact remains that they are just as much out of control in some senses as the gods that, through all their bickering and self-interest appear to be.

One of the biggest differences in between Achilles and Aeneas in terms of their interactions with the gods and subsequent decision is the way they handle this divine intervention. In the Iliad, there seems to be an underlying tension that Achilles carries about the fact that so much is already determined for him. He already knows his fate and although he does have the choice to settle down to the life of comfort he wishes for, he still decides to go and fight (partially for the glory rather than because of any sense of duty, it seems). This tension is apparent when he is speaking with his mother, the sea goddess Thetis, and she asks him what is troubling him. Achilles’ response reveals quite a bit about his feelings about this intervention as he shoots back, ““Why tell you what you know” (Iliad I.423). This is an enlightening scene since it shows the way Achilles reacts in the face of the divine influences, even if this one is his own mother. It also reveals the extent to which he knows his actions are being observed and that there is perhaps some hostility in this. It could also be that this is a more modern interpretation of this line and Achilles is not in fact angry, but is merely stating a fact. No matter which way the reader chooses to look it at though, he still knows that the gods are watching and finds out later that they are prone to favoritism, error, and violence.

Unlike Aeneas in the Aeneid, Achilles is prone to fits of rage and although he may seem a bit daunted by the interference of the gods at times, they do serve to help him curb his very worst character flaw—rage. For example, when the reader is first shown how aggressive Achilles is, they also quickly learn that gods who favor him act as balancers to his anger. Recall the scene in which Achilles is ready to kill Agamemnon without a thought, but Athena intervenes and explained in one of the important quotes from The Aeneid by Virgil, “It was to check this killing rage I came from heaven, if you will listen. Hera sent me, being fond of both of you, concerned for both. Enough: break off this combat” (Iliad I.243-246). Not only are the gods then shown to have favorites between these two prominent men, they act as personality moderators and seem to know the outcome—presumably that Achilles will win this fight and kill Agamemnon.

In some ways, it only seems fitting that Achilles’ capacity for rage and outbursts of childishness are sometimes unchecked by the gods. After all, the gods themselves, while bickering about the fate of the mortal Achilles, are prone to their own angry outbursts and childish scenes.  Hera challenges Zeus’ decision to punish the Greeks in revenge for Achilles’ dishonor, and later she directly intervenes in the midst of a successful Trojan onslaught, angry at their successes. “In these instances her anger is not described in conjunction with a reference to thumos, but at other times she surely has a thumos—‘Now Hera, she of the golden throne … her thumos was happy’ (Iliad 14.155). Even Aphrodite admits to having a thumos when she addresses Hera: “Speak forth whatever is on your mind. My thumos is urgent….” (Iliad 14.195). Only Thetis among the goddesses is particularly liable to sorrow” (Koziak 1066). Again, as with the mortals that have been chosen, the gods themselves are victims to the same sorts of emotion (thumos)-driven battles that Achilles and Agamemnon are open to. When viewed in this context, the actions of the gods in both texts are seen as entirely fallible and one can’t help but question whether Aeneas has been somewhat more foolish that Achilles in devoting himself to their fickle wills.

Still even though one may question the issue of the reliability of the gods, the fact remains that Aeneas does put a great deal of stock in their will. On the other hand, the gods are beneficial—at least in their eyes—because they think they helping Aeneas overcome a flaw. Very much as with Achilles, Aeneas’ “negative” personality traits are counterbalanced by the actions of the gods. By calling a trait “negative” in Aeneas’ case, this would be his devotion to the vengeful Dido. The gods know that he has a prophecy to fulfill, thus they serve as constant reminders of his duty and don’t allow him to slip into a domesticated life with a woman that he obviously loves. When they send him the divine message that he must leave Dido, he obeys, and thus is obeying the will of the gods (who, when one really thinks about it, are merely playing off of his domestic instincts by invoking his father’s name). Although the personality traits are very different between Aeneas, the fact remains that the gods serve to make them hold true to their purposes by causing them to act in ways that cancel out their bad habits and undesirable ways of acting of believing.

It truly seems as though Aeneas, unlike Achilles, is more willing to bow down to the pressures of the gods—even if he might think they have erred in their judgment. “Aeneas has long been recognized as a sort of proto-Stoic, struggling with variable success to achieve self-control and obedience to Fate. At the beginning of his journey, however, he momentarily resembles an Epicurean philosopher even as he engages in an act of conventional pietas. When his attempts to uproot a small tree to deck his altar twice cause the bark to drip blood (Aeneid 3.24-29), he tries to discover the hidden cause of this bizarre phenomenon” (Dyson 449). This is a rare moment of symbolism in the text and reveals Aeneas to be searcher for truth. Strangely though, his truth is not found in his own emotions, which the gods seem to deem as secondary to his fate, but his undaunted belief in this will seems unshakable and the fact that he questions the smallest signs would lead one to believe that he wishes to know the meaning of things.

In this cultural context (gods playing a direct role in the lives of mortals) one sees clearly that both Homer and Virgil, by attempting to reconstruct a romanticized past of glorious wars and great heroes, must have these men being directed by something divine. What makes these two characters so similar is that they both are the children of one god (thus the nepotism angle) and that they both possess outstanding features. While Achilles is the strongest man, he is prone to violent outbursts, but the gods temper this flaw. While Aeneas has a strongly emotional side, this too is counterbalanced by the wishes of the gods. Even though they have these two things in common, it is clear that their biggest difference lies in the way they react in the face of divine intervention, but more importantly, how greatly they wish to put stock in entities that are prone to making rash decisions. It would be difficult to engage in any meaningful discussion about either of these heroic characters without mentioning the gods, thus this paper has sought to represent the two in order to compare and contrast Achilles and Aeneas.

Related Articles

The Ancient Greek Economy and the Modern Economic Foundations

Three Views of the Model Citizen: Socrates, Antigone, and Oedipus

Education in the Roman Empire

Food Imagery and Temptation in The Odyssey

Works Cited

Dyson, JT. “Fluctus Irarum, Fluctus Curarum: Lucretian Religio in the Aeneid.” American Journal of Philology 118.3 (1997): 449

Kip, A. Maria Van Erp Taalman. “The gods of the Iliad and the fate of Troy.” Mnemosyne 53.4 (2000): 385.

Koziak, Barbara. “Homeric Thumos: The Early History of Gender, Emotion, and Politics.” Journal of Politics 61.4 (1999): 1068.

Powell, Barry B., and Ian Morris. The Greeks: History, Culture, and Society. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2002. 123.

The use and misuse of journalism as an instrument of propaganda is one of the central motifs in Orwell’s 1984, and the concerns that George Orwell articulates in his novel 1984 (as well as in other novels by George Orwell such as Animal Farm) are as relevant today as they were during the author’s own time, if not more so. The primary consequences about which Orwell worried because of media manipulation were individuals’ loss of a critical thinking faculty and the diminished capacity for self-expression. Contemporary readers of 1984 may justifiably have the same concerns.

As this thesis statement for 1984 by George Orwell attempts to unravel, one of the main concerns about the damaging psychological and sociological impact of the media is articulated early in the novel, when Winston Smith first engages in the subversive act of beginning a journal. Winston has been contemplating the act of starting a diary for some time, and, as stated in one of the important quotes from 1984,  “[f]or weeks he had been making ready for this moment” (Orwell 8). He had bought a journal in a shop, though he knew it was wrong to do so. He had also procured a pen and some ink. The reader gets the sense from this, among other quotes in 1984, that Winston is acting out of a certain urgency, that in fact, he has something important to record, for himself, certainly, and perhaps for posterity as well.

Indeed, the narrator of 1984 tells the reader that Winston planned the diary with the hope that he could “transfer to paper the interminable restless monologue that had been running inside his head…for years” (Orwell 8). Yet a curious thing happens to Winston when he touches pen to paper. At first, he is seized up with anxiety, realizing that he had thought so much about the act of writing that he had not thought much at all about what he was actually going to say. Initially, he draws a blank that is as pregnant as the page that is waiting for his words. The narrator of 1984 observes that Winston “… seemed not merely to have lost the power of expressing himself, but even to have forgotten what it was that he had originally.

The sense that Winston’s capacity for critical thinking and self-expression have been robbed from him are amplified by the fact that when Winston is finally able to translate his thoughts to the page the reader learns that Winston has not written in so long that his handwriting is tentative and “childish,” “stragg[ling] up and down the page” (Orwell 8). No one in Oceania needs to write because all thought and information, or more accurately, propaganda, are conveyed through telescreens. As Winston writes, in one of the important quotes from 1984 by George Orwell, his hand takes over and he abandons all “capital letters and finally even…full stops,” writing with an intense need about even the most seemingly mundane subjects (Orwell 8). He begins by describing the previous evening’s outing to the movies, and then describes the movie, which has obvious symbolic significance, and his own reaction, which is even more meaningful: “i dont suppose anything happened to her nobody cares” (Orwell 9). Winston is beginning to recuperate his capacity for critical thought and self-expression, as well as memory, which had eluded him earlier. The continued battle for self-expression however will be almost as difficult and as challenging as living in a repressive society where the media are instruments of hate, misunderstanding, and misinformation.

While Orwell’s novel may seem allegorical, it is not difficult to see that there are clear parallels between the kind of environment that he describes in the dystopic 1984 and our own fragmented world. As Cohn points out in his thesis statement for 1984 by George Orwell, an astute analysis of media tactics following the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, it is not even the intent to misinform or propagandize that is most dangerous. Equally as treacherous, and perhaps even more so, is the unconscious use of certain kinds of linguistic resources to subtly establish and consistently reinforce American dominance. Facts and information become distorted quickly when media outlets reports stories by using non-neutral words and descriptors that are by no means value- and judgment free. Speaking specifically of the conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians, Cohn, citing Fisk, writes that the United States’ media treatment of the Middle East region is characterized by euphemisms and misleading descriptors that convey subtle but clear messages about what Americans believe and for whom they should side. Cohn writes, “the ‘occupied territories’ are called ‘disputed territories,’ Jewish ‘settlements’ have become Jewish ‘neighborhoods,’ Arab militants are ‘terrorists’ but Israeli militants are just ‘fanatics’ or ‘extremists,’ and civilians killed by Israeli soldiers were ‘caught in the crossfire’” (25). Such reporting techniques are not unique to the American media’s coverage of events in the Middle East, though. Coverage of other countries’ and continents’ events, and our own domestic news is characterized by the same kinds of linguistic manipulations. Instead of reporting facts and trusting that comprehensive coverage of information will permit people to exercise their critical thinking and render their own judgments, the media are used to shape Americans’ opinions. Like Winston Smith, those Americans who question the “facts” or who deviate from the official interpretation of events and the opinions that should be adopted as a result are rendered suspect.

Orwell’s novel was an exercise in futuristic imagination, and a warning, of sorts, against a government and a society that robs its citizens of their capacity for critical thinking and reasonable, authentic self-expression. While many of the events and experiences described in 1984 may have seemed absurd at the time at which the novel was written, and may still seem exaggerated in some respects today, the reader who pays attention to current events and current media strategies realizes that the world as George Orwell envisioned it is not so different from the world in which we are living. Orwell was right to be concerned about these issues, and so should his contemporary reader.

Related Articles

Plot Summary of Animal Farm by George Orwell

Short Biography of George Orwell

Utopias and Dystopias: A Comparison of Lord of the Flies and Animal Farm

Social Stratification and Class in Animal Farm

Works Cited

Cohn, Majorie. “Understanding, Responding to, and Preventing Terrorism.” Arab Studies Quarterly 25.

Kosicki, Gerald M. “Problems and Opportunities in Agenda-Setting Research.” Journal of Communication43.2 (1993): 100-120.

Orwell, George. 1984. New York: Plume, 2003.

James Fenimore Cooper was one of the first novelists to enjoy great fame as a result of his literary career and although some may argue that this is because the subject matter was entertaining (rather than instructive or socially conscious, for example) the fact remains that he was able to introduce Americans to their own frontier. A writer in the style of romanticism, James Fenimore Cooper was enamored with tales of the outdoors and encounters with strange and often hostile people or forces. This material was well-received and because of his literary success James Fenimore Cooper was able to produce his large body of works throughout his lifetime.

James Fenimore Cooper was born in Burlington, New Jersey, although the family soon moved to New York where his father, a prominent judge and member of the government set up a new town called Cooperstown. After an unsuccessful stay at college, James Fenimore Cooper joined the Navy and enjoyed some deal of success commanding a ship as a lieutenant. Many of his works would eventually reflect his knowledge of the ocean as a wild frontier just as he also wrote about the American frontier in a number of other stories and novels. Interestingly, aside from his military background, James Fenimore Cooper knew little about the American frontier although in many ways his story came to define it.

He began writing as a young married man and his stories that involved sentimental and highly romanticized plots, settings, and characters were extremely popular with the ever-growing number of readers in the United States. Many of his stories were simply tales of adventure although his most important work, “The Last of the Mohicans” remains in the literary canon today because of  its complex portrayal of white and Native American interactions. While there are certainly elements of the tale that would be, at least in modern times, rather “politically incorrect” the novel does offer a striking realistic understanding of this relationship.

The Last of the Mohicans (as well as the other books featuring Natty Bummpo) explored such themes as the wide open country, the new population of the frontier, battles at sea, and living by one’s wits. While these themes were intensely popular with the general American public and gained Cooper notoriety with a number of other contemporary authors, his works were not always well-received in literary circles. For instance, Mark Twain thought Cooper’s works were akin to romantic drivel and he wrote a long piece entitled “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses” in which he criticized James Fenimore Cooper’s stories for being formulaic, too much enamored with romanticism, and highly implausible. At one point, he writes,  “In his little box of stage-properties he kept six or eight cunning devices, tricks, and artifices for his savages and woodsmen to deceive and circumvent each other with, and he was never so happy as when he was working these innocent things and seeing them go” (Twain 89). Still, despite such harsh criticism from an American literary master, Cooper managed to continue enjoying great success.

James Fennimore Cooper seemed to have little trouble creating stories rapidly and although they generally dealt with the same general settings and themes, they brought him a great deal of success, both in terms of money as well as literary prestige. By the time The “Last of the Mohicans” appeared on the scene, “James Fenimore Cooper had become a national figure, although critical judgment in New England condescended to him. He founded the Bread and Cheese Club in New York, a literary society of which he was the moving spirit” (Van Doren 288). This club flourished in the city as writers, both romantics and the emerging early realists came forth. Interestingly, James Fenimore Cooper was quite politically active in his community in support of liberal causes but he saved his views for the newspapers and other forms of non-fiction. Despite what he may have thought politically, his stories were usually removed from current debates and set in a land where such things did not matter. While he may have had something to offer readers politically, he instead offered them a chance to consider the American landscape and their relations with Native Americans. In addition to this, he also opened new avenues in romantic writing by incorporating adventure.

Aside from The Last of the Mohicans, Cooper’s most important literary contributions include The Spy andThe Pioneers. Fenimore Cooper also wrote a host of short stories. Again, both of these texts are romanticized adventures that offer his readers, both past and present, a new way to look at the American landscape and offers us a unique chance to consider how our relationships with our land and native peoples have changed throughout the years.

Related Stories

The Purpose of a Literature Review

Biography of Victoria Reid : Native American Woman

Twain, Mark. Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses. 1838.

Van Doren, Carl. The Cambridge History of American Literature Book II/Chapter VI: Brown-Cooper. New York: 1921.

For instance, without doing at least a preliminary literature review first, one might find that the central research question chosen has already been written about extensively and with a great deal of concurrence among the scholars, thus making it an unsuitable topic as the argument is far too easy and obvious. Since a solid research question rests on the writer’s ability to make a valid and contestable argument, only the literature review process would reveal that a topic is either “done to death” or has life left for a new reworking or new way of conceptualizing it.

In addition to revealing these possibilities (or lack of them) a literature review forces the writer to engage with other scholars who have worked with the same topic and to consider the nature of their research (for example, it’s limitations) and use this to further solidify the final product. This in turn leads to the revelation of new avenues in terms of broader theories to look at more closely and points to related sources that might not have been immediately discovered.

In terms of my own topic related to the effects of supervisors on employee morale in the workplace, I found that my initial research question, while interesting to me, was far too broad. An initial scan of the literature available revealed that this was indeed a topic that had been written about extensively and with the same conclusion—that yes, there is an observable impact on how employees relate to their supervisors (on many levels), thus reading several pieces on this topic led me to realize my topic needed refined far further.

The next step I took was to look at the many pieces I had gathered as many possible sources and to look for common themes in some of them. As this process continued, I was able to use a thematic approach to narrow down my topic and this guided me through long process of deciding what among this existing literature was still worth arguing and what would make the most valuable contribution from my questions. This process also prompted me to research theoretical principles I came across that were unfamiliar and required a process of sub-research areas. These secondary concerns then helped me form some rudimentary secondary/supporting questions. In short, writing a literature review is important because it forces evolution of the first working hypothesis—sometimes into something barely related to the initial idea.

Related Articles

An Annotated Bibliography of Creative Writing Resources

Difference Between Research Questions or Hypothesis

The Purpose of Social Research

By examining the poetry of Phillis Wheatley, Emily Dickinson, and Langston Hughes, three revered authors from three very different periods of American history, the consistent search for and interpretation of the very meaning of identity in America becomes evident, along with the deviating factors in the ever elusive struggle for the sense of self. All three of these American poets suffered from a degree of displacement in American society as it existed during the time they were writing and this struggle for identity functions not only a personal, but a national scale.

Phyllis Wheatley straddled the border between two cultures and two drastically different sources of identity; one that was indigenous and another that was forced and sought to eradicate any trace of personal identity. Born in 1753 in Africa, Wheatley was sold into slavery and brought to Boston at age eight to serve a white family. Although still a slave, Phyllis Wheatley’s intellect and inquisitive manner, coupled with the fact that she did not suffer quite the same drastic fate in terms of her slaveholding family, she was given a privilege that few white free females of her age were given—an education. She began writing poetry, and was published at age twenty in London. This was certainly a unique circumstance for a young black girl in America at the time and this tension between her two identities is a main issue in her poems. From the depths of slavery into the world of published authors, it is quite simple to see how Phyllis Wheatley would have been at odds with her identity, struggling to make sense of her place in the world.

In “On Being Brought from Africa to America”, Wheatley attributes her submission into slavery as an act of mercy by God. It is clear to her that without becoming a slave and making the awful journey across the Atlantic, she would never have been exposed to Christianity, and instead would have spent her days whiling away in her “pagan land” (line 1). However, despite her gratitude for her introduction to Christianity, she warns her detractors that although she is of the race of Cain, even her people can be saved and purified through Christ. It seems that although Wheatley is very glad to have lived through the circumstances that brought her to America, there are clearly certain citizens who believe that she should have remained in her place, both as a slave and a pagan. This clear tension between feeling grateful for being exposed to Christianity, especially when juxtaposed with her horrifying experience of being taken from her native land on a dangerous journey presents the modern reader with several disparate notions of identity, not to mention larger and more complex questions about the nature of slavery itself. While Wheatley finds an identity through Christianity, it should not be forgotten that her original identity, even while it may seem to come from a “pagan” land still exists and creates layers of subtle meaning for readers, not to mention a great deal of speculation.

Much of the speculation about the mixed nature of Wheatley’s identity is made more complex in another of her works in which race is an issue but not one that is direct. In “To S.M., A Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works”, she never mentions his race, or the fact that he is a young servant, much like herself. Instead, she focuses fully on his ability as a painter, pointing out the fact that he had the ability to conjure such incredibly lifelike figures from thin air. Wheatley tells him to “Conduct thy footsteps to immortal fame!” (line 12), and one cannot help but think that Wheatley is so encouraging because she wishes to disprove everyone who considers those lesser than themselves to be worthless. Through this piece, Wheatley is covertly making identity an issue of personal talents and skills rather than one that is based on one’s native land or social status in America. This hopeful ideal as expressed by a servant speaks volumes about the nature of American identity at this time because it conveys the spirit that through dedication, one can achieve anything. With this in mind, it is equally important to understand that this is a new concept of identity and interestingly, it is coming from a writer who was surrounded by the suppression of all forms of identity.

Even with her relative success, due to her status as a former slave and black woman, Phyllis Wheatley was still living on the margins of American society and it is this displacement that forms the backbone of her poetry. Interestingly, another female poet, Emily Dickinson also lived outside of mainstream American society, although by choice rather than force. Like Phyllis Wheatley, education and creative expression were the sources of identity but in Dickinson’s case, f it were not for her neighbor, Mabel Todd, whom she corresponded with via mail for quite some time, Dickinson would probably have died completely friendless, her poetry lost forever. Unlike Wheatley, Dickinson wrote for herself, and did not want her works to be published. This is important because her poems are marked by an intense honesty, especially for her time period, and her quest for identity in a world that she did not feel a part of it is mercilessly painted for the reader.

No poet displays this sense of loss quite so empathetically or eloquently as Emily Bishop. Born in 1911, Emily Bishop lived until the age of 68 and lived a life that was eerily similar to the poetry she wrote. According to the Norton Anthology, Bishop was born into a life of loss, and little changed as she grew into adulthood. However, Bishop was never one to wallow in self-pity or to excuse her behavior based on her past. Instead, embodying true American values, she showed brilliant resiliency and strength as she recounted painful moments in her own life and in the lives of her fellow human beings. Emily Bishop truly epitomizes her society through her ability to lose everything and still be grateful for the strength that enables her to recoup from these losses.

The first and perhaps most poignant poem, in terms of loss, is entitled “One Art”. This poem is truly all about losing, and to Bishop, it seems that loss is an art that must be perfected. From losing keys to long lost memories, to family heirlooms and old homes, the laundry list of things the narrator has lost in her life get progressively more serious. Finally, in the concluding stanza, she states that even losing the person that the audience presumes to be her lover was easy, but it’s clear that the narrator does not even believe that line; “It’s evident the art of losing’s not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster” (17-19). The parenthetical “write it” gives away the true feelings of the narrator, that although it is simple to lose things, sometimes it truly is disastrous.

The important thing about “One Art” is Elizabeth Bishop’s incredible ability to accept the losses in her life and move on from them. Throughout Bishop’s lifetime, society was lamenting the blows that life had dealt them. From committing suicide after the stock market crash to being forced to join WWI and WWII through drafting laws, societal life around Bishop was always difficult. However, just like most Americans, Bishop embodied the ability to pull herself up by her bootstraps and face the challenges that life presented to her, face forward, even when things became difficult and complicated.

Another poem by Bishop that shows her embodiment of twentieth century society can be found in Elizabeth Bishop: The Complete Poems. “A Miracle for Breakfast” details the encounter that a poor woman has, along with many other starving lower-class citizens. A rich man comes outside to eat his breakfast while there is a crowd of hungry people gathered under his balcony, hoping for some scrap of food to get them through the day. The narrator details how the people waiting under the balcony gave birth to impossible dreams, such as the man throwing down loaves of bread instead of crumbs. However, when crumbs were all that the people received, and they began to disperse, the narrator held her crumb up to her eye and began to dream. She envisioned her crumb becoming her own personal mansion, full of coffee and freshly baked bread and butter. Reality sets back in with the shifting of the sun on another windowpane, and the narrator is brought back to reality. While the story inside of the poem was very common, especially during the time of the world wars, when no one had enough food to eat and everything was rationed, the important portion of this poem lay in the vision that Bishop’s narrator has as she’s standing outside. In that moment, as she is looking the crumb but seeing a mansion created just for her, she is living the epitome of the American dream. While it may seem irresponsible to dream of impossible things, such dreamers built the very foundation of America. Dreamers like the narrator are the ones who perpetrate the legend of America as the land of milk and honey, with streets carved in gold. In that moment, the narrator is envisioning a better life for herself, and that very vision causes Bishop to be the exact embodiment of twentieth century life.

In conclusion, Elizabeth Bishop was a perfect embodiment of her society. She had experienced life, and lost, but she was not willing to lie down and give up. Instead, she fought for a better life, both for herself and for other people. Even Adrian Rich saw the dedication that Elizabeth Bishop had towards honing the ability to lose, and yet, continue on. In “Contradictions: Tracking Poems” Rich states that “acts of parting trying to let go without giving up yes Elizabeth a city here a village there a sister, comrade, cat and more no art to this but anger”. However, Rich saw that there was a buried bitterness in Bishop’s art of letting go, and perhaps that bitterness perfects Bishop as the embodiment of the 20th century. She had lost much, as had the rest of her contemporaries, and they had the right to be bitter. However, so much like everyone else, Bishop attempted to turn that bitterness into something good, into a success for herself, and that very American ideal is what puts her at the top, the poetess who perfectly embodies her society.

Related Articles

The Quest for Identity in American Poetry

American Literature in Historical Context : 1865 to Roosevelt

Annotated Bibliography of Creative Writing Resources

Works Cited
Baym, Nina, ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter 6th. ed. New York, NY: Norton & Co. 2003.
Bishop, Elizabeth. Elizabeth Bishop: The Complete Poems 1927-1979. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1979.
Longenbach, James. “Elizabeth Bishop’s Social Conscience”. ELH, Vol. 62, No. 2.
(Summer, 1995), pp. 467-486. Accessed from the JSTOR database 9 December 2007.

One of the components of a fairy story, according to Tolkien is to have the world created to a believable place —almost tangible, rather than allow the reader to remember constantly that what is being is read is mere fiction. Even more specifically, in “On Fairy Stories” Tolkien outlines not only what the content of a good fairy story should be, but more importantly, he talks about the criteria that define the very purpose of these tales. In fulfilling these criteria, good fairy stories serve a much larger function in how we understand and relate to our own modern world and by these elements of measure put forth in “On Fairy Stories” it is clear that Tolkien realized his own goals in the vast work of The Silmarillion.

To be clear before evaluating Tolkien’s success in creating his own definition of a true fairy story, it should be noted that in his essay that defines and defends fairy stories, Tolkien does not offer a wide clearance to many well-known works we might consider to be fairy stories. He makes it a point to separate works of true fantasy into categories, thus enabling him to isolate the meaning of a “fairy story” as opposed to works of science fiction and dream or beast tales. To Tolkien, many works such as Alice in Wonderland, for instance, or works that are clearly science fiction and that are sometimes categorized as fairy stories (or fairy tales) are not because they lack particular qualities, the most important of which revolves around the idea of credibility. To Tolkien, the world created in one of these stories should be accepted as truth or, as he puts it, it is “essential to a genuine fairy-story, as distinct from the employment of this form for less or debased purposes, that is should be presented as ‘true’” and that in his mind, there should never be cues in the fairy story that lead the reader to ever forget that what they are reading is fiction. This is one of the primary elements of a true fairy story and is certainly captured in The Silmarillion with its exhaustive, almost biblical sense of history, landscape, and scope.

In Tolkien’s view, as he expresses in his essay on the nature of fairy stories, tales of fantasy succeed when they present themselves as entirely real. This is one of the most successful ways in which he meets his own criteria in The Silmarillion because from every element of the epic work—from the details of the landscape and geography, to the unique cultures of the Elves and other groups, and even in terms of the realistic ways in which characters interact with one another are perfectly realistic. Furthermore, as he expresses in his essay “On Fairy Stories” far from being mere escapes from reality or tales aimed at children, the nature of the sub-creation of a different world is one that is recognizable to all readers, young and old alike and has enough in the way of a “consistency of reality” to be identifiable but enough difference to provide another valuable function of a good fairy story, which is escapism—a more complex matter than it sounds and an issue that will be addressed in coming paragraphs.

Along these lines of the value of realism in fairy stories, in meeting with this stated aim of a good fairy story, the extraordinary realism in terms of the land and people are so realistic because they all represent elements we recognize in our own society (although out of context in this book) and our own earth with its many regions and landscapes. One of the most persistent sensations one gets of both this sense of the recognizable and the completely believable, despite knowledge that it is fiction, is the way the creation story is told and the entire history of a world that is both our own but not at all is told in epic fashion. More specifically, part of the believability and almost authoritative tone of The Silmarillion is its similarity to other creation stories (which Tolkien suggests are the ultimate fairy stories, except they are our accepted truth) and especially the Christian Bible. For instance, at the beginning of The Silmarillion, much like in the case of other creation stories, “There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Iluvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought” (16). Like in many other religions that we recognize today, the earth and all of the great tale of the following joys and struggles begins with one figure, or God. This goes on with Iluvatar saying, “I will now that ye make in harmony together a great Music. And since I kindled you with the Flame Imperishavle, ye shall show forth your powers…I will sit and hearken, and be glad that through you a great beauty has wakened into song” (18). This is akin to Adam and Even in the Garden of Eden as there is an initial sense of peace, harmony, and goodness and a creator who is pleased with what he has fashioned. Just as in the case of many other religions that we recognize and thus associated with this story, the conflict emerges as an opposite force enters and the ultimately identifiable action of dark versus light, good versus evil enters into the picture. When reading the beginning sections of The Silmarillion, this similarity to world religions and especially the Christian tradition, lends a tone of believability, and even more importantly, part of this rests on the actual narrator’s voice, which is very much like that in the Bible, with “ye” and other archaic patterns of speech.

Part of what is important about the connection to the real world in terms of the plot and many of the epic struggles in The Silmarillion is that it defines another element Tolkien sets forth in “On Fairy Stories” in terms of escapism. While it is a bit confusing, Tolkien does not really mean that a true fairy story should let readers escape from reality and be entertained on this level, although this is something that happens anyway. What he seemed to mean by this is that the escape is present in our entry into another world where we can accurately define aspects of our own life and society and with this distance provided through the lens of fiction, we can have the opportunity to step back and see our world through the context of another. To be more clear about this, his idea about escapism is not related simply to the pleasure of reading to forget one’s troubles, but rather, to understand our troubles metaphorically, as it were, through the lens of this culture and society. In relation to this idea is Tolkien’s associated criteria of a fairy story as offering “recovery” which (arguably, of course) refers to this process of looking at our own world in the context of another during the period of escapism.

In addition to the concepts of recovery and escape as being integral components of a fairy story, another element that is present in The Silmarillion that helps categorize the story as a true fairy story pertains to the nature of the conclusion. Just as in the case of this connection to religious traditions and the associated establishment of credibility and believability in this work, there is yet another criteria of a good fairy story that is set forth in “On Fairy Stories” that is fulfilled. When a fairy story such as The Silmarillion provides the what Tolkien calls a “eucatastrophe” and ends not with a perfectly happy conclusion, but one in which a sense of greater balance has been restored, it further fulfills the qualifications laid out for the embodiment of a true fairy story.

Related Articles

Legend and Narrative: The Story of Sundiata and the Film “The Last Samurai”

Critical Analysis of “Turn of the Screw” by Henry James with Literary Crticism in Context

Nevertheless, the careful reader notices a curious trend in many of Shakespeare’s plays: many of Shakespeare’s female characters exercise a rather great deal of subtle forms of power and influence, and often do so in unusual and even subversive ways that challenge traditional gender roles. Although the male characters generally fail to notice or refuse to acknowledge women’s authority and influence openly, they are affected by it, often significantly so, and although Shakespeare himself might not have been “aware of the dissonances he create[d]” (Lindheim 679), the contemporary reader cannot help but be aware of them and in many cases, to view many of the characters present in several plays by Shakespeare as some of the main motivators of action as well as some of the most complex characters overall.

Some of the most interesting female characters in Shakespeare’s oeuvre are Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Viola and Olivia in Twelfth Night, and Gertrude, the Queen of Denmark and Hamlet’s mother, in Hamlet. Although each of these women finds herself in a social position and challenging situation that differs from the other, and though each employs a unique strategy for coping with her problems and contesting gender roles by exerting authority and influence subtly and subversively, these four women are similar in that they all insist upon their right to direct their own destinies and, at times, the destinies of others as well. Furthermore, all three of these female characters from the aforementioned plays are all quite developed and are in many ways some of the most complex characters presented in their respective plays. As literary critic Ehnenn remarks regarding the women in many of Shakespeare’s works, these characters, both in their own time and in ours, “reveal tensions and ruptures” in traditional gender roles and ideologies that are not resolved easily (319). Although Shakespeare permits some of the female characters to exist fully outside of conventional norms, others are put back into their place, so to speak, provoking an anxiety that gender roles are “neither stable nor essential” (Ehnnen 319). In other words, there is a constant tug-of-war in terms of gender and power in many of these works where women are at once exerting a great deal of power and influence while on the other hand are often being set back or marginalized at other points; there is no certainty.

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the reader recognizes right away that Hermia is no ordinary woman. Her father, Egeus, has dragged Hermia off to Theseus’s court in a desperate attempt to compel his daughter to comply with his wish that she marry Demetrius, rather than her beloved, Lysander. Egeus does not choose the court on a whim; rather, he is hopeful that by taking Hermia to the literal and symbolic seat of the highest authority of the land, she will recognize and honor masculine authority and, by extension, will comply with traditional gender roles, which dictated that a woman should marry to either preserve or advance social ties and familial goals, not to gratify her own romantic or sexual needs or desires. Egeus, who has arrived at the court “full of vexation…and complaint against [his] child” (I.i.22-23), is so insistent about the importance of maintaining the dominant gender paradigm that he entreats Theseus to use the full weight and penalty of the law to punish his daughter if she does not obey, even if the punishment means death. Theseus, clearly invested in maintaining the prevailing social order because it advances his own interests, concurs with Egeus, and admonishes Hermia, saying, “To you, your father should be as a god…/[O]ne to whom you are but as a form in wax/By him imprinted….” (I.i.47,49). In other words, gender roles and expectations are being stated to this strong female character in no uncertain terms.

What is remarkable about Hermia’s response to both her father and to Theseus is that it is impassioned but logical, convincing but calm. She protests, but is neither aggressive nor apologetic in doing so. In fact, Hermia deploys a clever and intelligent argumentative strategy to respond to the men and to maintain her own position and the right to direct her own destiny rather than have it chosen for her and uses the fine art of rhetoric to defend her ideas as opposed to simply her gender or sexuality. “I know not by what power I am made bold,” Hermia begins thoughtfully but not tentatively, “But I beseech your grace that I may know the worst that may befall me in this case….” (I.i.58, 61). With this statement, Hermia demonstrates respect for authority by using the formal address of “your grace,” but articulates clearly that she is a woman who will decide what she deems best for herself based on a consideration of the consequences of the alternatives that are available to her. Interestingly though, she is using the delicate but weighty issue of power within her own defense, thus is offering a nod to the fact that there are such power differences between genders but not allowing this to completely dominate her and not allow her to make her own decision. When Theseus replies that Hermia has two choices—either to “die the death or abjure for ever [sic] the society of men” (I.i.64-65), neither of which is palatable—Hermia replies, again with calm assertiveness, that her soul “consents not to give sovereignty” of itself to another, even if that other is a powerful man who holds the highest authority in the land (I.i.80). It is clear that this is a bold statement to make and the reason why this is so enervating is that she is openly refusing to offer her own right to make decisions to authority simply because it should be respected because it is a male-based authority.

Following a year-long walking tour of Europe, Faulkner settled back in Mississippi and began writing more frequently and began to enjoy some success. While he left for some time to write for the film industry in Hollywood, he returned rather quickly back to the South, choosing Virginia over Mississippi, and eventually received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950 with books he wrote that include The Sound and the Fury, among others. Just as in many of his works, the South and its characters are among the primary issues for exploration—especially in terms of the South’s dark history of slavery and its efforts to reconcile itself with modernity. These are primary struggles in “A Rose for Emily” as well as the townspeople, both curious and repulsed by the strange, fascinating, and fallen figure of Miss Emily are themselves caught in a web of perceptions of the Old and the New South.

Briefly, in Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” the main character, Miss Emily Grierson (click here for a full character analysis of Miss Emily), is described in great detail by a local narrator who provides a very personally nuanced and chronologically disjointed narrative. Emily and her family (which was really only her father) represented the town’s aristocracy, but upon her father’s death and the apparent disappearance of her suitor, she sinks into a depression and becomes a recluse in her massive, antiquated and decaying old house with only a servant permitted in. This provides the narrator opportunity to talk about her past, her family, and her oddities but eventually leads to the revelation that she poisoned her suitor and had been sleeping with his corpse for several years. While “A Rose for Emily” is about this plot itself, it is almost more about her community and how Emily serves as a monument or broken relic to remind her community, even if they tend to romanticize the past, of days gone by and an era passed.

When Emily Grierson passes away, the community comes to pay their respects not out of genuine sadness about her death, but more due to “a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument.” Despite this more direct and unmistakable association between Emily and a fallen monument, Faulkner urges his readers to make this connection throughout the text by using characterization techniques and imagery. These tactics that subtly urge readers to make connections between Miss Emily and a fading monument reinforce the idea that Emily represented the old way of life in her town. Emily is a relic from another era who refuses to accept changing times and who persists without change, like an old monument that is always present but immobile and steady in its spot.

Miss Emily’s house itself stands as a fallen monument and reminder of days gone by and is symbolic of Emily’s position in the community. It sits with its “stubborn and coquettish decay” among signs of modernity such as garages and signs of mass production, thus rendering the house “an eyesore among eyesores.” Just like the structure that housed her for so many years and decayed right along with her, Miss Emily refused to take note of the changes occurring around her and instead chose to confine herself in her monument of a home and become a relic herself. The stubborn nature of home that persists among an entirely new world is representative of her personality as well and it seems it is still standing out of sheer stubborn defiance due to the grudge over her tax notice and inability to escape a bygone era.

“The house is a shrine to her father’s narrow values, with everything left in its nineteenth-century place” (Roberts 159). While it is all left intact and in much the same condition it had always been, the exterior is rotting away and the house looks particularly out of place amidst the growing modernity that Emily is oblivious to. One scholar makes connections between the decaying old home and what it represents symbolically in terms of the “rot” that was taking place inside. “Her house, with its musty unused rooms and locked doors—a prison and a mausoleum—signifies how she has pretended to confirm to the Old South code of chastity, all the while reveling in her deviancy” (Roberts 159). What this suggests that the outward appearance of wealth, no matter how faded it was becoming and how much of a relic of the Old South it was, hid horrible truths—just like the entire history of southern slavery. While this is a much broader topic that would require its own set of multiple pages, it is worth pointing out that the external state of decay and denial of modernity reflected the antiquated view of the Old South, which was kept alive only by strange figures such as Miss Emily.

The use of imagery in “A Rose for Emily” reinforces the idea that Emily is like a fallen monument. For example, following the death of her father and the desertion by her suitor, some of the male town leaders are unable to find a way to tell her that her house smells. People are afraid of her and have no idea how to approach her, thus in this case, they are forced to sneak around her house at night to lay down lime to resolve the horrible smell. Interestingly, instead of saying anything to them, Miss Emily sits with the “light behind her, and her upright torso motionless as that of an idol.” This image of Miss Emily silhouetted in the window of her aging home, completely still, reminds one of a monument; a still, lifeless (but somehow still life-like) object silently looking out on a world it cannot touch. What is notable about this passage is that this is an observation from when Emily was a younger woman. Few aspects of her life changed because just before her death, the same image is used again when the narrator states just before she died, “Now and then we would see her in one of the downstairs windows—she had evidently shut up the top floor of the house—like the carven torso of an idol in a niche, looking or not looking at us, we could never tell which.”

Still, despite these general contextual differences, both of these plays’ roots in talking about social injustice are based on language differences. While the language issues certainly are not operating alone, they do offer an interesting and narrow point of examination between two texts that while thematically similar, are different in far too many ways to address together in a general way.

In terms of the creative thrust behind the exploration of the issue of social injustice in A Raisin in the Sun, the way characters use language is the most revealing and in fact, indicates how they view their position in their societies. All of the main characters in “A Raisin in the Sun” have their own unique “voice” that is aligned with their personality. For example, as people who strive toward and greatly value education, characters such as Beneatha and her suitors speak with an emphasis on using language derived from their education, just as being people with experiences rooted in the everyday, Mama, Walter, and Ruth all speak clearly, although in ways that are influenced by vernacular.

While this characterization through dialogue and distinct voices comprise an expected component of drama, the way language functions in terms of representing social injustice in black America in A Raisin in the Sun is a bit less expected and are especially cutting during dialogue by Linder. For the main characters in A Raisin in the Sun, these expressions of individuality in the form of language are meant to convey certain truths about the speaker and although this is consistent as each character has his or her own “voice” that corresponds to the personality, there is no contrivance behind it–the language is not simply for show and meaning can always be derived from it with minimal digging. However, in the case of Linder this is not at all how language operates and in fact, his language is representative of the sneaky form of injustice, not to mention the overt form of it that the family is victim to.

The meanings of Linder’s words are clouded and submerged under layers of double-speak and it is difficult to understand his point clearly, thus making the entrance of his “voice” highly contrasting to the voices of the characters introduced up to that point. Instead of being clear and open, even though he speaks eloquently, unlike the eloquence of Asagai or Beneatha, it is for the purpose of confusing the people he is speaking with and making the impact of what he is saying sound less severe, humiliating and unjust. ). For example, instead of simply getting to his point about not wanting Mama and her family buying a house, he spend a long-winded paragraph before getting to his point, which is unclearly stated, “at the moment the overwhelming majority of our people out there feel that people get along better; take more o a common interest in the life of the community when they share a common background” (100).

Using this kind of manipulatively innocent language to convey deeply-held racist views on the part of his community, Linder is at once insulting the members of the Younger family by trying to use double-speak and confusing language to mislead them and although it does not work, it is nonetheless representative of the ways in which buried meanings packaged in niceties is used as tool to manipulate people, thus leading to social injustices such as barring a family from a community because of their color. He presents his racist proposition from his community to buy the house as being “at a financial gain to [the] family” (100) since people “get awful worked up when they feel their whole way of life and everything they’ve worked for is threatened” (101). While he tries to use persuasive speech cloaked under the rather transparent veneer of civility, it is clear that this is a major act of injustice and it is made all the more infuriating because of the way it is masked in polite, eloquent language.

Language is a paramount issue in terms of addressing social inequality in the play by Tracey Scott Wilson, The Story as well although as stated, in a different context. Interestingly, it is someone who likes to consider herself a victim of inequity who is doing the manipulating through language. Words are Yvonne’s business and her construction of well-crafted eloquent works of journalism speaks volumes about her ability to lie; to construct an identity through words. However, in doing so, she is both revealing issues of social inequity and is creating her own. When Yvonne says of her co-workers Neil and Pat, whom knows realize that she is fraud “it’s like grammar school all over again and all the cool black kids hate me….something in my walk. Something in my talk tells them I’m not ‘down’” (Wilson 62) she is seeing the relationship between the way she talks and how she is perceived unjustly. There is pressure on her, as in the case of Beneatha, to be like those around her and not conforming to this expectation creates a situation of double-inequity; blacks who suffer from a lack of equality are subjecting other blacks to stereotypes and railing against them if they do not make a conscious effort to fit in. As she suggests by saying it is something in the way she talks, it is clear that language for her is creating this unjust situation, even if she is a liar and a cheat.

In the play by Tracey Scott Wilson entitled, The Story, language serves as a different kind of marker for different social groups who are constantly the victims of social inequality in the form of stereotyping. It should be noted that this is a particularly complex social inequality situation because this stereotyping, which leads to injustice, is perpetuated by the same media where Yvonne, herself a black woman who works against stereotypes in her own way. For instance, in the case of Latisha, who is confused about her identity as an educated black woman who is constantly kept down by low expectations of black women says, “I look around my neighborhood and I wish I could move. Everybody acts so stupid, But they’re not stupid. They just act stupid…the oppressed are taught to believe the worst about themselves. So I just wanted to see. I spoke Italian and German to you and you still believed I was in a gang” (Wilson 46). In some ways, this offers a varied approach to the importance of language in the context of social injustice; in A Raisin in the Sun elevated language dictated a higher level of education and self-worth, whereas here it has been rendered virtually meaningless because stereotypes are so strong that even being multi-lingual and having an above-average grasp on the English language is not enough. In other words, the stereotypes have won and the language has become a form of trickery or manipulation—the victims of injustice now must resort to the same double-speak tactics used by Linder, for example.
Both of these texts, due to their degree of variance in terms of context, setting, and other important features are difficult to compare, even though they explore the same theme of social injustice. What emerges is interesting, however, as it offers two ways of thinking about the interaction of language and social injustices; language reflects the self in A Raisin the Sun whereas in The Story, languages helps to create the self, even if that self is entirely devoid of truth or pure meaning. What happens with this interaction is that injustices are far more nuanced than in plays such as To Kill a Mockingbird, for instance, where the racism is overt and unhidden. In this new territory, language tries at once to be a way out of injustice, although in doing so, in some cases, only creates more resentment.

Related Articles

Injustice and its Implications in The Play To Kill a Mockingbird

Analysis and Review of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Analysis of Racial Separation in Black Cuban, Black American by Evelio Grillo

References

Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. New York: Samuel French Inc., 1984.
Wilson, Tracey Scott. The Story. New York: Dramatists Play Service Inc., 2004,