In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there emerged and died a genre in English literature that since been labeled the "thing" or "it narrative." It is a fascinating genre in which the author follows an object through it's trajectory. Most popular were coins and handkerchiefs. They would go from factory to pocket, hand to hand, and throughout their existence was punctured between the Manicheaen poles of light and dark. This genre emerged because of a national consciousness of the changing ways of interaction between mankind as a result of the industrial revolution. (for Blake's response the shifting interactions through the metaphor of the Thames and rivers in general, see my Lectures on Blake as Presented to Mercy College, Cameroon). Anyway, out of the death of the thing narrative came a revitalized interest in the passage of man from stage to stage, jostled and hustled by others until he achieved some sort of education, that is, achieved a sense of self. This is, of course, this Bildungsroman. In this genre, the protagonist moves about experiencing various sensations. It is remarkable for its paradoxical passivity. For as the hero actively undertakes adventures and adventures undertakings, his revelations and epistemic shifts occur from external sources and are often the source for contemplation (the thing thinking about what it saw in the light when it returns to the pocket). This tradition, we can say broadly, begins with Goethe' Wilhelm Meister, a man whose last name gives the telos, through Tom Jones by Fielding, Nicholas Nickelby by Dickens, and a Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by Joyce. This list is, obviously, a minuscule sample joined by a genre link and the fact that I think everyone should read them. It is in the last that we find young Stehen Daedalus (Joyce understands the interpellating power of the last name) having epiphanies forced upon him. It is through his series of epiphanies that Stephen moves. it is through aesthetic spheres that Wilhelm moves, it is by road and through society that Tom Jones moves, it is through violent encounters that Nicholas moves, and it is through writing and grading exams at College Protestant that Christian moves.
Of these models, I am most like Stephen in that I have the modernist tradition of self reflection to enable me to state, "ahh I am having an experience of epiphany now I am changing" and rather than have the change affect me, I affect the change. So how did it happen. It began last week when I announced the exam. I then carefully detailed every class between last Wednesday and this Thursday to contain a portion of review and a portion of the new lesson. In this way, I felt, I handed over the manner of achieving perfect scores. And then the exam came and I watched as they struggled and struggled turning their papers this way and that. Confused, I walked around one whispered angrily to me "we've never seen these sentences before" another that "these sentences are harder than those you gave." I was shocked. Of course the sentences were different, of course they were harder an exam is meant to push and challenge. It is a map with the borders but hazy un-inked cloudinesses given Rorschach blots from the stains of the students who learn through suffering. Well, perhaps not all that, but it is meant to apply the lessons taught. So I shrugged off these comments.
And then, after giving the last test of the day, a tiny little boy, Onguene, approached me smiling, I asked him if he thought the exam was easy. He smiled and said, "No, it was a very good exam; I failed." There was my epiphany. Somehow the students were judging the exam's quality rather than its efficacy to actually perform an examination. I wondered why this was, and in the dark of my pocket of consciousness, I decided that it is because I am not severe enough. On Friday, I walked into class, to minutes after the whistle, (the bell is broken) I took attendance and counted as absent all who were not there. Then I made them clear their desks of everything not related to English class. I then wrote the date on the board and a clearly articulated theme. I admitted to them that it was probably my fault as well as theirs (le desordre est commun mais l'echec est individuel) and will now no longer believe them when they tell me that they understand. Also, I now link a common question to each lesson with a variety of responses I have always done this, but now I make them write it down. I decided on this because after asking, every day, last week "how did you come to school today" I had a depressing number who failed to answer with any coherence. And I also am returning to something that I did at the beginning of the year. I go around and force them to ask each other in small groups.
And so we shall see if change occurs. For after all, if Stephen eventually epiphanied himself into one if the greatest novels ever written, "Ulysses," wherein might I?
I realize that little this post covered hardly anything, but I did little but go back and forth to school. At the coffeeshop last night, June jokingly said "O, there're no comics from your mom today, eh?" to which I silently flourished a new envelope from out of my pocket. And after making everyone admire the stamps of hot air balloons, we shared the comics and laughter elicited from them. The best, a drops Hagar the Horrible which finds our hero and his perpetually underfed sidekick locked in manacles in a prison. They resign themselves to their fate and decide at that point that all they can do is shake their chains and sing Jingle Bells. (the connections with my tesching the same song to students are delicious apropos of Foucault's "Discipline and Punish" and the link between state correctional institutions.
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