The Journey's End

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Initially, I had no idea what direction to take for my paper. I knew I wanted to write about Anthem, and I knew I wanted to write about either Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass, and I knew I wanted to tie the two together somehow, but I really didn't know which way to go.

Then I looked back at the Personal Literary Narrative I'd written about Anthem, and the thing I said I loved the most about this novel was the language. And then, as I thought about it, I realized that all of the papers I've written in this class so far have had some sort of linguistic twist. Language is my thing, apparently. And since language is such an integral part of both novels anyway, it seemed like a good topic to discuss.

But even though I had a topic, I still didn't know exactly which route to take. My first idea was actually to write about how language controls thought. I circulated this vague idea around to a few of my friends, who gave me some decent feedback and suggested that I talk about how language affects identity.

Coming Together

The thing I've worked on most with my paper so far is just finding key passages that demonstrate how language affects the thoughts and/or actions of the characters, and I've done a bit of research, but the thing I need to focus on most as I write my paper is cohesion. I know how to analyze specific passages to support my point, but I know that a collage of key passages doesn't mean anything if I can't draw them together in a cohesive argument that starts somewhere and leads to somewhere else in order to prove (or at least support) the point of my thesis.

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I think that I have enough feedback at this point in my process to start digging into my paper, but more feedback and suggestions are always welcome. But I feel like at this point in the process, more feedback won't be helpful until I actually write more of my paper and give people something more substantial to give me feedback about. If that makes sense. So I really just need to sit down, stop procrastinating, and start writing.

Language is Power

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Here's a question or two for all you English/linguistic enthusiasts/normal people who speak some sort of language:

To what extent do you think that language actually controls thought? Does this bother you?

This is what my paper is about, and I want to know how relevant and interesting this subject is. I've written out an introduction and a little bit of sample analysis. It's still super rough and I haven't really revised it yet, but here's a sample of my basic ideas:

Language is the medium through which thoughts are formulated, and thought is often limited by the limitations of the language. This idea has been explored through literature throughout history; notably, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four comes to mind, in which the Party actively eradicates all excess words to make the vocabulary of the people smaller in order to reduce the chance of “thoughtcrime” (citation needed). But before Nineteen Eighty-Four was published in the year 1949, Ayn Rand’s Anthem (published in 1938) and Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass (published in 1871) both explored the effects of language on someone’s thoughts, actions, or perception of reality. Anthem is a dystopia, with obvious social commentary about language, whereas Through the Looking Glass has a much more whimsical tone and uses language less oppressively, but despite their different genres and tones, each novel demonstrates how language can literally control people, and limitations in the language lead to limitations of thought.

Things I've Never Tried Before

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Honestly, I'm terrified to share my paper thesis with a stranger. I've never approached another human being about any paper I've written for school, unless that person has been a friend in the class and we are complaining about it. The idea of approaching a complete stranger and presenting something as personal as my novice efforts is disconcerting... but perhaps it has its upside after all.

I decided to look up The Phantom Tollbooth on Goodreads to find someone who had written a review that might echo my thesis. I found a couple people: one compared the book to L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz, which reminded me of my comparison to Through the Looking-Glass; another mentioned that she had recently read the Tollbooth in preparation for her own research paper. Even though I was speaking to strangers and I had only a little information to go on, I took a deep breath and commented on their posts.

Gearing up for the Journey

By this point I think I've made it clear how much I love the Hero's Journey (or at least the idea of it). I'll admit that the reason why I chose my thesis is because I love The Phantom Tollbooth, and I love adventures, and since the Tollbooth is an adventure story... Well, everything just fit together a little too perfectly, so I seized the chance.

My sketchbook. Click for a closer view.

I know that I'm going to have to do a lot of research into Joseph Campbell's theories about the Hero's Journey. To be honest, I've only really looked over the Wikipedia article, but I've heard about it a lot through word of mouth and the idea fascinated me. I think it's worth looking into.

For the purposes of the paper I'm going to write, I must talk about a book of my choice and one of Lewis Carroll's books about Alice, so I decided to contrast the two. The Hero's Journey is supposed to explain why popular stories become popular: they simply incorporate the Journey pattern into their plot. Through the Looking-Glass is certainly enjoyable (at least it is to my odd sense of humor) and it's one of my favorite books, but not because of any journey of growth that Alice embarks on. Here is a working shell for my final paper.

(I must also acknowledge the possibility that while I am researching the Hero's Journey and analyzing Through the Looking-Glass, I will realize that it actually does contain the Hero's Journey... at which point I'll simply have to change my thesis. We'll see what happens!)

I think it will be a lot of fun to sit down and analyze Milo's trek through the Lands Beyond. It's something that I've always secretly wanted to do.

The Great We (with a side of jam)

Language has always been one of the most interesting things to me about literature. It's actually really interesting to me in general, and something I've been thinking about lately is how language correlates with thought and one's perception of reality.

In Ayn Rand's Anthem, for example, everyone's thoughts appear to be controlled by their language. In part one, Equality 7-2521 states the following:

"WE ARE ONE IN ALL AND ALL IN ONE. THERE ARE NO MEN BUT ONLY THE GREAT WE, ONE, INDIVISIBLE AND FOREVER."

We repeat this to ourselves, but it helps us not. These words were cut long ago. There is green mould in the grooves of the letters and yellow streaks on the marble, which come from more years than men could count. And these words are the truth, for they are written on the Palace of the World Council, and the World Council is the body of all truth. Thus has it been ever since the Great Rebirth, and farther back than that no memory can reach.

The mantra of the Great We, that states that there is "only the great we, one, indivisible and forever" eradicates the concept of the individual. Equality 7-2521 states the mantra as "truth," and he believes it at this point in the story because this is what he has always been told. He can't even conceptualize the idea of the individual. And the reader must remember that every other character in the story is also one individual human being, yet they support this idea of the Great We with religious zeal: "There is no crime punished by death in this world, save this one crime of speaking the Unspeakable Word."

But Anthem is not the only story in which the language controls the thoughts and reality of the characters. For example, in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, Alice experiences a linguistic  impasse with the White Queen when the discuss the conditions that Alice would experience under her hire: "Two pence a week, and jam every other day." 

Alice tells the Queen that she doesn't want any jam that day, and the Queen tells her that she couldn't have any jam anyway, because "It's jam every other day: to-day isn't any other day, you know." The language controls them: it will never be possible to eat jam, because it will always be today, and therefore never a jam day.

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The World We Write In: How Setting Affects Readers

As I've been reading Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd, I have found it rather difficult to connect the story with Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass.  What I have noticed, though, is that both authors use a lot of in-depth descriptions to really put the reader into the story.  I'm not entirely sure if this is the direction I want to go, but I think it's a good starting point anyway.  Here's my working thesis statement:

The setting in Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd draws the reader in, allowing them to take the journey with the characters.  The crazy, upside-down world in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass has a similar effect on the reader.  Setting, therefore, is one of the most important aspects of writing because it has such an influence on how the readers interpret the story.

Update (March 12):  I've decided to change my thesis.  After discussing and doing some more research, I'm going to focus my paper on feminism in Far From the Madding Crowd and Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.  I'm going to research feminism in the time period of both authors, who Carroll and Hardy approached feminism, and how their female characters interact with their stories.

Anthem in Wonderland: A Linguistic Approach

We're writing a big paper in our writing literary criticism class, and I'm going to contrast Anthem by Ayn Rand with Through the Looking Glass and/or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. At first I was thinking about taking a generic approach--maybe trying to argue that Carroll's Wonderland is a dystopia, just as the world in Anthem is a dystopia, but let's be real. I love analyzing language way too much to pass up the opportunity to do so here.

So I'm thinking about writing something about how language controls thought in Anthem as well as in Carroll's works. What do you guys think?