DESIGN

Igår var jag på födelsedagsmiddag hos Marian. Det var trevligt och väldigt(!) god mat men jag var sjukt trött och är lite småsjuk så jag gick ganska tidigt. De andra skulle dra ut efter men jag orkade verkligen inte. Istället drog jag hem till Max, la mig i soffan och halvsov medans vi kollade på film.

Idag så har vi bara varit inne och slappat. Eller ja, vi har ju faktiskt pluggat en hel del fysik. Sen så hittade jag en hundring på ICA! scoore :)

Jag och Linn har bestämt oss för att ha en vit månad, inga undantag! Det ska bli skönt.

"Well we all have a face that we hide away forever,
And we take them out and show ourselves when everyone has gone.
Some are satin, some are steel, some are silk and some are leather.
They're the faces of The Stranger, but we love to try them on."

--Billy
Joel, "The Stranger"

What causes a person to create a mask for themselves? What happens to
a person which forces them to employ a dual
persona--one private, one public? Is this duality indicative of
psychosis, or do we all have parts of ourselves that no one else can
see or comprehend? In The Autobiography of My Mother, Jamaica Kincaid
has succeeded in creating for readers a glimpse into
the psyche of a disturbed woman. The protagonist Xuela embodies the
hallmark traits of a person suffering from Depression,
Schizoid Personality Disorder, and Narcissistic Personality Disorder,
yet she is able to relate her story to us in "...a chilling and tight
monologue, a haunting expression of the protagonist's isolation"
(Brown, E). Kincaid paints Xuela's internal and external worlds by
using the first-person narrator, a technique which captures life's
canvas through the unblinking filter of Xuela's mind and senses.
Kincaid also relies heavily upon repetition, both of words and
instance, which reinforces the constancy of Xuela's thoughts and
actions. Kincaid's text, thus, becomes what Carl G. Jung refers to as
an "abreaction" for Xuela--a method of becoming conscious
of repressed emotional reactions through the retelling and reliving
of traumatic experience, similar to catharsis (Sharp). Are we
able to say definitively, then, that Xuela's life-story deserves a
clinical evaluation? An examination of the evidence, I feel, will
show
that we are.

I have chosen to read this novel through the eyes of a psychologist,
looking at Xuela's observable behavior, combined with her own
verbalization of self-concept and identity, as it relates to the
larger picture of her family dynamics and upbringing. We learn on
page one that Xuela's mother dies in childbirth, and we come to learn
that she has been basically abandoned by her father during
her early, formative years to the care of a non-relative. Later, we
find that her father has remarried and that his wife, in Xuela's
view, is hostile towards her. A half-brother and half-sister enter
the scene, neither of whom befriend Xuela, who grows up
essentially parentless, peerless, and loveless. Is this time in her
life the genesis of her personality deficits? I believe it is, for
what
other choice does Xuela have but to parent, befriend, and love
herself? These problems are not hers alone, however, for her own
narcissism stems from that of her father, a fleeting yet dominant
presence in her life. What follows, while perhaps unorthodox in a
literary sense, is an imaginary dialogue between me,
the "therapist/listener/reader" and Xuela. I feel it is crucial in
this particular work of fiction to focus close attention to what the
protagonist tells us and reveals to us through her language in order
to arrive at a complete understanding of her character.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Therapist/Listener/Reader (henceforth, TLR): "Good Morning, Xuela.
We're here today so that you may tell me a little bit about
yourself. Talking about our lives is beneficial, right? It helps us
to think about our past in a new light, a light which may spread
some new-found awareness on our present situations. How would you
like to begin? Start with whatever you feel is important.

Xuela: "My mother died at the moment I was born" (3).

<Therapist's Note> Patient has no maternal figure in her life.

TLR: I'm terribly sorry to hear that. How did that make you feel?

Xuela: "...my loss...made me vulnerable, hard and helpless...I became
overwhelmed with sadness and shame and pity for myself"
(3-4).

<Therapist Note> Patient relays classic symptoms of
depression: "Freud said that the depressive lost a love object (was
deprived
of a properly functioning parent). The psychic trauma suffered is
curable only by inflicting self-punishment (thus implicitly
"punishing" and devaluing the internalized version of the
disappointing love object). The development of the ego is conditioned
upon
the successful resolution of the loss of the love objects (that all
of us have to go through). When the love object fails - the child is
furious, revengeful, aggressive. Unable to direct these negative
emotions at the deserving parent - the child resorts to directing
them at himself. Narcissistic identification means that the child
prefers to love himself (direct libido at himself) than to love an
unpredictable, abandoning parent (mother, in most cases)" (Vaknin 2).

TLR: Were there any outward signs of this depression, for that's what
sadness is, Xuela--a colleague once told me that "Sadness is
the name that they give to the resulting wariness, to the knowledge
that the battle is lost and personal doom is at hand. The individual
becomes depressed only when he becomes a fatalist" (Vaknin 2). Is
that how you felt--that there was no hope for the future?

Xuela: "I wanted to cry, I felt so alone. I felt in danger, I felt
threatened; I felt as each minute passed that someone wished me
dead" (30).

<Therapist's Note> Patient exhibits symptoms of depression and
perhaps paranoia.

TLR: That's an interesting observation, Xuela, but let's back up a
bit. I read in your file that when you were very small, you didn't
speak. Tell me about that.

Xuela: "I knew I could speak, but I did not want to" (6).

<Therapist's Note> Shows defiance at an early age.

TLR: Would you say that this was a painful time period for you?

Xuela: "...everything in my life, good or bad, to which I am
inextricably bound, is a source of pain" (7).

TLR: Were you punished as a child?

Xuela: "One day, without meaning to, I broke a plate...When I broke
the china plate and caused Ma Eunice to cry so, I did not
immediately feel sorry...When I broke the plate and would not say
that I was sorry, she cursed my dead mother, she cursed my
father, she cursed me. The words she used were without meaning; I
understood them, but they did not hurt me, for I did not love
her...she made me kneel down on her stone heap...with my hands raised
high above my head and with a large stone in each hand.
She meant to keep me in this position until I said the words 'I am
sorry,' but I would not say them...it was beyond my own will"
(9-10). ---pause--- "Why should this punishment have made a lasting
impression on me...? ...As I was kneeling there I saw three
land turtles crawling in and out of the small space under the house,
and I fell in love with them, I wanted to have them near me, I
wanted to speak to them each day for the rest of my life" (11).

<Therapist Note> Lack of love and understanding from primary
caregiver; magical thinking; inability to apologize.

TLR: And did you? What happened to the turtles?

Xuela: I made an enclosure for them and brought them "the leaves of
vegetables and water in small seashells. I thought them
beautiful...but they would withdraw into their shells when I did not
want them to, and when I called them, they would not
come out. To teach them a lesson, I took some mud from the riverbed
and covered up the small hole from which each neck would
emerge, and I allowed it to dry up" (11-12).

<Therapist Note> Patient tortures small animals as a child; "animal
inagery reflects the basic instincts which motivate human
behavior, such as reproduction and self-preservation" (Brown, G.).

TLR: Tell me about school, Xuela.

Xuela: "It was my father's wish that I be sent to school" although I
thought "...what could an education do for someone like me?"
(12) "I was not afraid in that new situation: I did not know how to
be that then and do not know how to be that now...(and if it is
not really true that I was not afraid then, it was not the only time
that I did not admit to myself my own vulnerability)" (14).

<Therapist Note> Patient shares evidence of introspection; displays
lack of self-esteem ("someone like me").

TLR: When you started school, were you speaking?

Xuela: "I started to speak quite openly then--to myself frequently,
to others only when it was absolutely necessary. We spoke
English in school...and among ourselves we spoke French patois...I
spoke to myself because I grew to like the sound of my own
voice. It had a sweetness to it, it made my loneliness less, for I
was lonely and wished to see people in whose faces I could
recognize something of myself. Because who was I? My mother was dead;
I had not seen my father for a long time" (16).

<Therapist Note> Patient begins to develop an intimate relationship
with herself and seeks out signs of identity; "The Narcissist is
shielded by this construction. He lives in a padded cell of his own
creation, an eternal observer, unharmed, embryo-like in the
womb of his True Self" (Vaknin 6).

TLR: Were you a good student?

Xuela: "I learned to read and write very quickly. My memory...was
regarded as unusual...my teacher...said I was evil, I was
possessed...I was beaten and harsh words were said to me when I made
a mistake" (19). We learned to write letters, and I wrote
letters to my father, with no intention of sending them. The letters
were found and my teacher thought that I referred to her. "She
said my words were a lie, libelous, that she was ashamed of me, that
she was not afraid of me. My teacher said this in front of the
other pupils at my school. They thought I was humiliated and they
felt joy seeing me brought so low. I did not feel humiliation at
all...I felt something. Behind her shoulder on the wall was a large
female spider carrying its sac of eggs, and I wanted to reach out
and crush it with the bare palm of my hand" (21).

<Therapist Note> Patient again exhibits misplaced aggression towards
small animals as well as giving evidence of a flat affect,
inappropriate emotion in a stressful situation; "The Jungian
interpretation of the spider is that it is a symbol of anguish and is
associated with narcissism" (Brown, G.); Patient also quietly accepts
the hatred and negativity directed toward her: "Hate never
surprises Xuela. In fact, it intrigues her. She gains an almost
perverted sense of strength from it, causing her to love all the more
the things people hate in her" (Bailey).

TLR: Did you wish that your life could be different?

Xuela: "I recognized my own misery, but that it could be alleviated--
that my life could change, that my circumstances could
change--did not occur to me" (20).

TLR: What happened next?

Xuela: "My father came to fetch me wearing the uniform of a jailer.
In my life then, his presence was a good thing, but it was too
bad that he had not thought of changing his clothes; it was too bad
that I noticed he had not done so, it was too bad that such a
thing would matter to me" (25). "He placed me on the donkey and sat
behind me...I could hear my father's breath...I could hear the
sound of his heart beating...This new experience of really leaving
the past behind...I had not been able to do it by myself, but I
could see that I had set in motion events that would make it
possible... If I were ever to find myself sitting in that schoolroom
again,
or sitting in Eunice's yard again...none of it would have the same
power it once had over me--the power to make me feel helpless
and ashamed at my own helplessness" (25), though as we rode through
the darkness, "My sadness inside became manifest to me"
(26).

<Therapist Note> Patient seems to be channeling her defiance into a
feeling of control over her own environment, her
own life course, yet continues to be depressed; "Depression is
addictive because it is a strong love substitute...The depressive is
devoid of the positive reinforcements, which are the building blocks
of our self-esteem" (Vaknin 2).

TLR: What was life like in your new home?

Xuela: My stepmother was "afraid of me; she was afraid that because
of me my father would think of my mother more often than
he thought of her" (33). She said I didn't bathe properly..."My human
form and odor were an opportunity to heap scorn on me. I
responded in a fashion by now characteristic of me: whatever I was
told to hate I loved and loved the most. I loved the smell of the
thin dirt behind my ears, the smell of my unwashed mouth, the smell
that came from between my legs, the smell in the pit of my
arm, the smell of my unwashed feet. Whatever about me caused offense,
whatever was native to me, whatever I could not help
and was not a moral failing--those things I loved with the fervor of
the devoted" (32).

<Therapist Note> Patient begins to show symptoms of Narcissistic
Personality Disorder: excessive attention to self, grandiose
ideas of self-importance; "One tragedy affecting these people is
their inability to love. The person with a narcissistic personality
disorder approaches people as objects to be used up and discarded
according to his or her needs, without regard for their feelings"
(Ratzlaff). (See also Appendix B)

TLR: Was your stepmother ever kind to you?

Xuela: "She made me a present of a necklace fashioned from dried
berries and polished wood and stone and shells from the sea. It
was most beautiful, too beautiful for a child, but a child, a real
child, would have been dazzled by it...I was not a real child" (34).

<Therapist Note> Patient establishes abnormal identity--sees herself
as different, not real; "The identity of a human develops along
the line of differentiation between the self and everything which is
not the self, which is outside. The process of recognition of
what is 'I' and what is 'Not-I' is influenced by the individual
socialization" (Heinke).

TLR: What happened to the necklace?

Xuela: She wanted me dead, so "I did not want to hold on to it for
very long" (34). I hid it in a secret place. She had a dog, and "one
day I placed the necklace around the dog's neck, hiding it in the
hair there; within twenty-four hours he went mad and died" (34-35)
"The world I came to know was full of danger and treachery, but I did
not become afraid...I tried to cloak myself in an atmosphere
of apology. I did not in fact feel sorry for anything at all, I had
not done anything, either deliberately or by accident, that warranted
my begging for forgiveness, by my gait was a weapon--a way of
deflecting her attention from me, of persuading her to think of me
as someone who was pitiable, an ignorant child" (41).

<Therapist Note> Feelings of persecution, and again, cruelty to
animals, as well as a firmly established dual persona; "Instead of
being provided with the love that he craved, the Narcissist was
subjected to totally unpredictable and inexplicable bouts of temper,
rage, searing sentimentality, envy, prodding, infusion of guilt and
other unhealthy behaviour patterns. He reacted by retreating to his
private world, where he was omnipotent and omniscient and, therefore,
immune to such vicious vicissitudes" (Vaknin 3).

TLR: How did you spend your days?

Xuela: "My father must have loved me then, but he never told me so. I
never heard him say those words to anyone. But he wanted
me to keep going to school, he made sure of this, but I do not know
why. He wanted me to go to school beyond the time that most
girls were in school. I went to school past the age of thirteen. No
one told me what I should do with myself after I was finished
with school" (40). To my teachers, I seemed quiet and studious; I was
modest, which is to say, I did not seem...to have any interest
in the world of my body...From the time I stepped out of my bed in
the early morning to the time I covered myself up again in the
dark of night, I negotiated many treacherous acts of deception, but
it was clear to me who I really was" (42).

<Therapist Note> Continued dual persona (with unnamed treacherous
acts ?); continued narcissistic behavior; budding sexuality;
signs of emerging Schizoid Personality Disorder (See Appendix
A); "The current sets of understandings of the body seem
characterized by discomfort--some writers express profound unease
with any self-definition, whether based on biological structures
or on cultural and social position; others are made nervous by
potency...Western tradition identified the body with nature and the
female" (Bynam).

TLR: Tell me about puberty.

Xuela: "When I first saw the thick red fluid of my menstrual blood, I
was not surprised and not afraid...I was twelve years old, but
its appearance to my young mind, to my body and soul, had the force
of destiny fulfilled...I knew then that the child in me would
never be stilled enough to allow me to have a child of my own"
(57). "Observing any human being from infancy...is something so
wonderful to observe, so wonderful to behold; the pleasure for the
observer, the beholder, is an invisible current between the
two...and I believe that no life is complete...without this invisible
current, which is in many ways a definition of love. No one
observed and beheld me, I observed and beheld myself...I came to love
myself in defiance, out of despair, because there was
nothing else" (56-57).

<Therapist Note> "This choice--to concentrate on the self--is the
result of an unconscious decision to give up an unrewarding
effort to love others and to trust them. The child learns that the
only one he can trust to always and reliably be available is himself.
Therefore, the only one he can love without being abandoned or hurt
is himself" (Vaknin 7).

TLR: How did you become familiar with yourself and start to love
yourself?

Xuela: I used to stare at myself in an old piece of a broken looking
glass I had found in some rubbish under my father's house. The
sight of my changing self did not frighten me, I only wondered how I
would look eventually; I never doubted that I would like
completely whatever stared back at me" (58). "I became fascinated
with...vanity: the perfume of your own name and your own
deeds is intoxicating..." (59).

<Therapist Note> Patient is aware of the duality in her personality--
that what she sees reflected in the mirror is not necessarily her
true self; growing narcissism; "Narcissus is not in love with
himself; he is in love with his reflection" (Vaknin 7); "The
narcissist
consumes his mental energy incessantly in this process. He drains
himself. This is why he has no energy to dedicate to others. This
fact plus his inability to love human beings in their many dimensions
and facets, transform him into a mental recluse. His soul is
fortified and in the solace of this newly-found fortification he
guards its territory jealously and fiercely. He protects what he
perceives to constitute his independence" (Vaknin
7); "Psychologically, the shadow or reflection carries the image of
the
False-Self, not the ego (or True Self). It is interesting and even
psychotherapeutically useful to have persons suffering from NPD
study their face in a mirror. Often they will see someone of great
power and effectiveness, precisely the qualities they feel they lack"
(Vaknin 8).

TLR: Tell me about living with the LaBattes.

Xuela: "In my fifteenth year...my father took me to the house of a
man he knew...Jacques LaBatte. He, too, was a man of no
principles, and this did not surprise or disappoint me" (60).

TLR: And Mrs. LaBatte? How did the two of you get along?

Xuela: "When I looked at her I felt sympathy and also revulsion. I
thought, 'This must never happen to me,' and I meant that I
would not allow the passage of time or the full weight of desire to
make a pawn of me" (65) "I was alive; I could tell that standing
before me was a woman who was not...in seeing the thing I might be, I
too early became its opposite" (66). She told me to "make
myself at home, to regard her as if she were my own mother...she
could not know what such words meant, to hear a woman say
them. Of course I did not believe her, I did not fool myself, but...I
liked her so much" (66).

TLR: You lost your virginity in that house, to Monsieur LaBatte?

Xuela: Yes. "...without making of it something it really was not I
was not the same person I had been before" (71).

<Therapist Note> Patient loses her innocence; explores her sexuality;
continues to define her identity while denigrating others.

TLR: How did it happen?

Xuela: "I was sitting late one day, in a small shaded area behind the
house...I did not wear undergarments anymore, I found them
uncomfortable, and as I sat there I touched various parts of my
body...I was running the fingers of my left hand through the small
thick patch of hair between my legs and thinking of my life...and I
saw that Monsieur LaBatte was standing not far off from me,
looking at me...We held each other's gaze" (70). Later, we went
inside. "He was not a man of love. When he was through with me
and I with him, he lay on top of me, breathing indifferently, his
mind on other things" (71).

<Therapist Note> ...brazen sexuality; non-conformity to rules of
society (no underwear); lack of appropriate affect.

TLR: And later, you discovered that you were pregnant. What thoughts
went through your head during this time?

Xuela: "I felt that if there was a child in me I could expel it
through the sheer force of my will. I willed it out of me. Day after
day I
did this, but it did not come out" (81). "I walked to the house of a
woman...called 'Sange-Sange'...she gave me a cupful of a thick
black syrup to drink and then led me to a small hole in a dirt floor
to lie down. For four days I lay there, my body a volcano of
pain...then for four days after that blood flowed slowly and steadily
like an eternal spring. Then it stopped. I was a new person
then. I knew things I had not known before. I knew things that you
can know only if you have been through what I had just been
through. I had carried my life in my own hands" (83). "To die then
was not something I desired. I did not die, I did not wish to"
(92).

<Therapist Note> Patient exhibits magical thinking (willing something
to happen or not to happen), as well as vehement denial of
maternal instincts. On a positive note, suicidal tendencies are
absent.

TLR: After the abortion, did you stay with the LaBattes?

Xuela: It was my father who found me, though "he did not know what
had happened to me" (95). "In his mind, he believed he loved
me; ...all his actions were an expression of this. On his face,
though, was that mask...and even now as he stood over me, he did
not wear the clothes of a father: he wore his jailer's uniform...I
told my father that as soon as I was able to, I would return to the
household of Madame and Monsieur LaBatte" which I did. "We stood
there, the three of us, in a little triangle...and yet at that
moment someone was of the defeated, someone was of the resigned, and
someone was changed forever. I was not of the
defeated; I was not of the resigned" (93). I only stayed a short time
there.

<Therapist Note> More evidence of dysfunctional concern on the part
of parental figure; more identity solidification.

TLR: Where did you go?

Xuela: "I left the household of the LaBattes at the very blackest
point of the night. This was not because of the cover of darkness.
I did not want the actual sight of Lise seeing me leave her to haunt
me for the rest of my life; I could imagine it well enough... I
rented a house...I took a job sifting" (96) mud.

<Therapist Note> Patient exhibits a strong desire to avoid
confrontation; makes first independent decisions; "Mud and dirt
symbolize a quagmire inhibiting progress" (Brown, G.).

TLR: What did you think of your new-found independence?

Xuela: "My life was beyond empty. I had never had a mother, I had
just recently refused to become one, and I knew then that this
refusal would be complete" (96). "In that house, I sat, I stood, I
lay down at night, and so sealed the doom of the children I would
never have...I slept...I went to work...I did not yet know how
vulnerable each individual is to the small eruptions that establish
themselves inside her heart...I bought the garments of a man who had
just died...It was these clothes, the clothes of a dead man,
that I wore to work each day. I cut off the two plaits of hair on my
head...I did not look like a man, I did not look like a woman...I
spoke to no one, not even to myself. Inside me there was nothing
(but) an ache of such intensity that each night as I lay alone in
my house all my exhalations were long, low wails..." (98-99).

<Therapist Note> Patient now exhibits signs of severe depression and
shattered identity: chronic sadness, listlessness, devoid of
affect, inappropriate attire, negating identifying marks of gender.
The house symbolizes the confines of her inner life/True Self/ego;
"The True Self is indeed synonymous with the (Freudian) Ego. It is
shriveled, dilapidated, stifled and marginalized by the False Self"
(Vaknin 8); "In Jungian psychology, what happens inside a house
happens inside ourselves" (Brown, G.);

TLR: Did you recognize this time as the severe depression that it
was?

Xuela: "I came to know myself, and this frightened me. To rid myself
of the fear I began to look at a reflection of my face in any
surface I could find...To love was beyond me...I had gained such
authority over my own ability to be that I could cause my own
demise with complete calm. I knew, too, that I could cause the demise
of others with the same complete calm... I began to worship
myself...It was this picture of myself...that I willed before me. My
own face was a comfort to me, my own body was a comfort to
me, and no matter how swept away I would become by anyone or
anything, in the end I allowed nothing to replace my own being
in my own mind" (99).

<Therapist Note> Strong emergence of the False Self combined with
narcissistic behaviors stemming from prolonged, involved
introspection (reflection); Patient also states that suicide was
contemplated, as well as violence towards others; Complete lack of
affect.

TLR: You understand that this was not a healthy time for you. What
ended this cycle?

Xuela: "I had been living in this way for a very long time, not a
man, not a woman, not anything..." (102). "I received a letter from
my father asking me to come home to his house" ...Yet as I read the
letter I noticed that "a wild bush had been in bloom for many
days now...I looked at it. Its many flowers were small and a deep
pink, with long deep throats and short flared lips for petals. A
single bee kept going in and coming out, going in and coming out, in
a leisurely fashion, as if it was at play, not at work at all. I
suddenly grew tired of the life I had been leading; it had served its
purpose" (104). "I left for my father's house in the middle of the
night...When I left, the night was black, a moon was in the sky, but
I could not see it: a thick cloud hung a false ceiling between us.
I was alone" (105).

<Therapist Note> Continued lack of gender identity, which is suddenly
reversed with the contemplation of a flowering plant. The
flowers symbolize a woman's sexual organs; the bee symbolizes a man.
This causes the patient to close this chapter of her life
completely, to want to resume her role as a woman and daughter, and
again she leaves under cover of darkness. Here, the moon
symbolizes an elusive womanhood due to the clouds, which symbolize
the as-yet-incomplete and uncertain False Self.

TLR: Were you happy about this step towards change?

Xuela: "It was at that moment that I felt I did not want to belong to
anyone; I did not want anyone to belong to me" (104). "I
wanted to do everything for myself" (105). "When I saw my father's
house again, I wept...It was not an old house; ...but already it
sagged with the many burdens of its inhabitants...I could not see
anything of myself in this house; I could see only others. I did not
belong in it. I did not yet belong anywhere" (106).

<Therapist Note> Lack of identity and belonging; lack of close
relationships; fierce independence. Again, this house symbolizes her
life, the enclosure of her inner life (ego/true self).

TLR: What was your relationship with your father like at this time?

Xuela: There was no real relationship. "...in his life he had already
exhausted the experience of usefulness, the experience of
needing, the idea of desire. He was an animal of neutrality. He could
absorb love; he could absorb hate. He could go on. His
passions were his own; they did not obey a law of reason, they did
not obey a law of passionate belief, and yet he could be
described as reasonable, as someone of passionate belief. I was like
him. I was not like my mother who was dead. I was like him.
He was alive" (108).

<Therapist Note> The patient finally touches on the symbiotic co-
dependent nature of the narcissistic-narcissistic relationship (the
two narcissists feed off of each other for self-gratification); "I
don't really write about men unless they have something to do with a
woman" (Bonetti), and in this case the patient and her father are
almost twins in their disease.

TLR: You returned home ostensibly because your brother was ill?

Xuela: "My brother died. In death he became my brother. When he was
alive, I did not know him at all" (110). "When he died,
before he was nineteen years of age, I did not feel it was a tragedy,
I only felt it was merciful that his life of misery and torture
should be so short" (55).

<Therapist Note> Inappropriate affect; "The Narcissist fast tires of
trying to fake "real" emotions; he becomes impassive and
begins to produce the inappropriate affect (remain indifferent when
grief is the normal reaction, for instance). The Narcissist
subjects his feigned emotions to his cognition. He "decides" that it
is appropriate to feel so and so" (Vaknin 3)

TLR: How were things with the rest of your family during this time?

Xuela: "My father and his wife and his daughter, the girl who was not
me...formed a triangle of pain...I was only a reminder of
disappointment, on the one hand; on the other, I was of the flesh of
someone he believed he had loved. My father could not love,
but he believed he could, and that must be enough, because perhaps
half the world feels that way. He believed he loved me, but I
could tell him how untrue that was, I could list for him the number
of times he had placed me squarely within the jaws of death; I
could list for him the number of times he had failed to be a father
to me, his motherless child, while on his way to becoming a man
of the world. He loved, he loved; he loved himself" (113). "One day
he got a motorcar...in it he and his wife and his daughter would
drive to Rouseau...and attend church. I did not go in the car with
them to church, I did not go to church at all, and I did not eat
dinner with them" (119).

<Therapist Note> More evidence of the dysfunctional family situation
as well as definitive recognition of her father's own
narcissism; Patient shuns all relationships; "The family is the
mainspring of support of every kind. It mobilizes psychological
resources and alleviates emotional burdens. It allows for the sharing
of tasks, provides material supplies coupled with cognitive
training. It is the prime socialization agent and encourages the
absorption of information, most of it useful and adaptive. This
division of labor between parents and children is vital both to
development and to proper adaptation. The child must feel, in a
functional family, that he can share his experiences without being
defensive and that the feedback that he is likely to get will be
open and unbiased. The only 'bias' acceptable is the set of beliefs,
values and goals that will finally be internalized via imitation and
unconscious identification. So, the family is the first and the most
important source of identity and of emotional support. It is a
greenhouse wherein a child feels loved, accepted and secure--the
prerequisites for the development of personal resources. On the
material level, the family should provide the basic necessities,
physical care, and protection as well as refuge and shelter during
crises. We can safely say that the narcissist's family is as severely
disturbed as he is. He is nothing but a reflection of its
dysfunction. One or more (usually many more) of the functions
aforementioned are improperly carried out" (Vaknin 7).

TLR: So things on the home front were not pleasant. Tell me more
about your sister.

Xuela: "She insisted that I was not my father's child, and that even
if I was his child, I was illegitimate. The look of awe and
bewilderment that alternately crossed her face when she realized that
I welcomed this characterization made me pity her. I wished
she would draw inspiration from me" (114). She had her own problems
though--she discovered that she was pregnant. "I helped
her rid herself of this condition...I made her strong potions of
teas. When the child inside her still refused to come out, I put my
hand up into her womb and forcibly removed it. Her body shrank and
crumpled with pain. I had become such an expert at being
ruler of my own life in this one limited regard that I could extend
such power to any other woman who asked me for it...She never
thanked me; in fact, the powerful clasp in which she could see I held
my own life only led to more suspicion and
misunderstanding"(115). "Ah, how much she did not know herself caused
me such sadness that for one whole day I wept from it.
She, too, was in love with herself, but hers was not a self worth
loving" (119).

<Therapist Note> Patient exhibits inappropriate affect/lack of affect
at being challenged/confronted; she exhibits grandiose ideas
of her own "powers"; expresses desire for the sister to trust her
experience since they've been in similar situations; sister does not
reciprocate the attempts at forming a relationship, which causes the
narcissist to denigrate her inwardly; The patient, says Kincaid,
"is a fertile woman who decides not to be" (Garner).

TLR: Did something happen to your sister soon after her own abortion?

Xuela: "She had been given a bicycle," (119) which she would ride out
into the country on a Sunday afternoon. I immediately knew
that she was going to meet the man my father did not like. "I had
seen her...before she set out to meet her destiny and she had that
peculiar way about her that people sometimes get...that look which
says, Every action I now take is the action that will determine
my end...she was without pity when she looked at me, but it did not
matter. I did not need her pity" (121-122). "They...had met in a
place between Massacre and Roseau, they had kissed, he had been on
top of her, they were both half-clothed, she had gasped, he
had groaned...the way he pleased her... was so glorious to my sister
that she thought this sensation was unique to her being with
him...she did not know she could have this sensation with anyone
else, including her own self. She was in love with him, and what
did that mean? It was something I hoped never to know, for she made
it look like the definition of foolishness itself. She was
rounding the bend, the sharp bend, the bend that was so sharp it felt
that way even when you were walking slowly" (121) ["on that
road I spent some of the sweetest moments of my life..." (50)] "She
was going at too fast a pace and she went off the road" (121).
She was never the same again.

<Therapist Note: Total lack of affect, other than scorn towards her
sister's foolishness. Based on her statements, and her overall
symptoms, I feel that the patient had something to do with
this "accident."

TLR: What happened to her beau?

Xuela: I was curious so I went to him. After I slept with him, I told
him about my sister. He did not know that she had a sister. "His
hands has been incapable of providing pleasure, or even providing
interest; his lips...satisfied themselves" (126). He was laughable.
Seven years later, he married my sister. "I was not invited to their
wedding" (127).

<Therapist Note> Malicious behavior, sexual acting-out; further
breakdown of family relationships; "ego-syntonic display (patient
finds nothing unacceptable, disagreeable, objectionable, or alien to
himself in his actions)" (Vaknin 9)

TLR: Where did you go at this point?

Xuela: My father made me move to Rouseau again, to assist an
Englishman in his medical practice. It meant nothing to me. I spent
time in thought: "I own nothing, I am not a man. I ask, What makes
the world turn against me and all who look like me? I own
nothing, I survey nothing...when I ask this question, my voice is
filled with despair" (132). "...it is winter; ...I look down on
people
who are familiar with it but I, Xuela, am not in a position to do
more than that...it is spring; ...I think people who are associated
with
it are less than I am but I, Xuela, am not in a position to make my
feeling have any meaning" (136-137). "It made me sad to know
that I did not look straight ahead of me, I always looked back,
sometimes I looked to the side, but mostly I looked back" (139).
"...always the first person you feel sorry for is your own self"
(138).

<Therapist Note> Depression has returned; patient feels isolated;
lack of identity; denigration of others; "By following 'I' with her
name, Xuela stresses almost unnecessarily her identity as different
from Kincaid" (Dalleo).

TLR: Describe your relationship with your employer, Philip Bailey.

Xuela: "He was like most of the men I had known, obsessed with an
activity he was not very good at, but he took directions very
well and was not afraid of being told what to do, or ashamed that he
did not know all the things there were to do" (143).

<Therapist Note> Patient describes an inflated sexual history; is
denigrating of others; excessive arrogance.

TLR: So this became a sexual relationship?

Xuela: I had been working with him for over a year, and I went to see
him as a doctor...he had to examine my chest. "Because my
breasts were in such a state (of constant excitement), I wore strips
of muslin wrapped tightly around my chest, as if to protect an
old wound" (147). Later, he came to me. "He had come into my room in
his usual state: he said nothing, he showed nothing, he
acted as if he were feeling nothing, and that suited me, for everyone
I knew was so filled up with feelings and words, and often much of
this was directed at impeding my will" (143). "I would grow tired of
it, and it would cause me to take offense, and I would put a stop to
it by removing my clothes and standing before him and stretching my
arms all the way up to the ceiling and ordering him to his knees to
eat and there make him stay until I was completely satisfied" (145).

<Therapist Note> Binding of the breasts indicates a denial of gender;
Lack of affect in a developing relationship; patient expresses
displeasure at not getting her way; strong sexual dominance of
partner; stretching of arms upward is the patient's subconscious
saying, "I'm sorry--I can't help myself," which harks back to her
punishment for breaking the plate and her inability to apologize.

TLR: Mr. Bailey obviously did not have a problem with your dominance--
how did the physical relationship progress?

Xuela: "He said my name...I could feel the darkness of the night
outside...I had been sitting on the floor caressing in an
absentminded way various parts of my body...He said my name...I
wanted to respond in a normal way...but I could not do this, my
voice felt as if it were trapped in my hand, the hand that was
trapped in the hair between my legs...He was not at all the person I
dreamed of lying on top of me, my legs wrapped around his waist...He
did not look like anyone I could love, and he did not look like
anyone I should love, and so I determined then that I could not love
him and I determined that I should not love him. There is a
certain way that life ought to be, an ideal way, a perfect way, and
there is the way that life is, not quite the opposite of ideal, not
quite the opposite of perfect, it just is not quite the way it should
be but not quite the way it should not be either...He called my
name...He called my name and it was as if he were imprisoned in the
sound of my voice...I stood before him, my arms above my
head, my head inside my nightgown, naked. I do not know how long I
stood like that...but I became eternally fascinated with how I
felt then...I had not allowed myself to acknowledge how powerful a
feeling it was, I myself had no word for it...the feeling was a
sweet, hollow feeling, an empty space with a yearning to be filled,
to be filled up until the yearning to be filled up was exhausted...I
closed my eyes and ...removed his belt, and using my mouth I secured
it tightly around my wrists and I raised my hands in the air,
and with my face turned sideways I placed my chest against a wall. I
made him stand behind me, I made him lie on top of me...I
made him lie in back of me...I bit his hand...I made him kiss my
entire body...the room grew smaller and smaller as it filled up
almost to bursting with hisses, gasps, moans, sighs, tears, bursts of
laughter; but they had a deep twist to them, a spin, an edge, that
transformed these sounds from their ordinary selves...all these
sounds came from me...no sounds came from him, only sometimes he
would murmur my name as it if held something, a meaning, a memory
that perhaps he could not let go...I did not mean peace to him...I
could not mean peace to him, it would have been dangerous for him if
that had been so, the temptation to see him die I would have found
overwhelming, I would not have been able to resist it" (150-155).

<Therapist Note> I feel I've just heard a moment of epiphany from the
patient, for in the telling of this one event, she has
illuminated so many of her problems: 1) her position when Philip
enters the room echoes her position when first confronted by
Monsieur LaBatte; 2) the repetition of her name is seductive to her;
3) she enunciates a desire to be "normal" but knows that she
cannot be; 4) every narcissistic desire is fulfilled; 5) she becomes
the sexual dominatrix, while simultaneously putting herself in the
position of bound "slave" to this white man; 6) total lack of affect
towards the relationship, coupled with total immersion in her own
physical sensations; 7) overwhelming sadistic desire to do harm to
the one who brings her pleasure; and 8) again, we see the
unconscious cry of "I'm sorry" through the repetition of the
upstretched arms.

TLR: Did the fact that Mr. Bailey was married hold any moral
impediment for you?

Xuela: No. His wife was "a lady, a combination of elaborate
fabrications, a collection of externals, facial arrangements, and
body
parts, distortions, lies and empty effort. I was a woman, and as that
I had a brief definition: two breasts, a small opening between
my legs, one womb...such a description has at its core the act of
self-possession, and at that moment my self was the only thing I
had that was my own" (159). "She would speak in long sentences and
nothing was really said...just an annoyance that was her
voice, and my impulse to make it quiet with a swift blow had to be
resisted" (157). "It is among the first tools you need to
transgress against another human being--to be very pleased with who
you are" (156). "Each deed, good or bad, holds inside its self
its own reward, good or bad; each act you commit is your gift to
yourself. She died. I married her husband" (160). "I married a
man I did not love" (206).

<Therapist Note> Patient differentiates her own identity from others--
(note that the "others" are the ones who presumably wear
false masks); continued violent tendencies, narcissism and lack of
affect.

TLR: How did she die?

Xuela: "It was said of me that I had poisoned my husband's first
wife, but I had not; I only stood by and watched her poison herself
every day and did not try to stop her. She had discovered--I had
introduced the discovery to her--that the large white flowers of a
most beautiful weed, when dried and brewed into a tea, created a
feeling of well-being and induced pleasant hallucinations. I had
become acquainted with this plant through one of my many wanderings
while freeing my womb from burdens I did not want to
bear, burdens that were a consequence of pleasure, not a consequence
of truth; but this plant was not otherwise useful to me
because I was not in need of a feeling of well-being, I was not in
need of pleasant hallucinations. Eventually her need for this tea
grew stronger and stronger...I was often touched by her suffering,
for she did suffer, and then again, often I was not...But she died
and turned to dust, or dirt, or the wind, or the sea, or whatever it
is we all turn into when we die" (206-208).

<Therapist Note> Again, lack of affect, towards death or
relationships; direct involvement in the woman's death, though
patient
subconsciously denies it; previous desire expressed to squelch this
woman's "voice".

TLR: Were you content with Philip?

Xuela: No, for "...in those moments when I was not a prisoner of the
most primitive and most essential of emotions, that thing
silently, secretly, shamefully called sex, my mind turned to another
source of pleasure...His name was Roland" (163).

TLR: Tell me about Roland.

Xuela: "His mouth was like an island in the sea that was his face...I
could see only his mouth....It was a mystery to me that he had
been alive all along and that I had not known of his existence and I
was perfectly fine...I was standing under the gallery (out of the
rain) and had sunk deep within myself, enjoying completely the
despair I felt at being myself...I saw his mouth. He was speaking to
someone else, but he was looking at me...I started to perspire from
an effort I wasn't aware I was making; I started to perspire
because I felt hot, and I started to perspire because I felt
happy...I wanted him to notice me, but there was so much noise...I
called
out my own name, and I knew he heard me immediately, but he wouldn't
stop speaking to the woman he was talking to, so I had to
call out my name again and again until he stopped, and by that time
my name was like a chain around him, as the sight of his mouth
was a chain around me. And when our eyes met, we laughed, because we
were happy...And when our eyes met and we laughed at the same time, I
said, 'I love you, I love you,' and he said, 'I know"...I had become
occupied with this other sensation, a sensation I had no single word
for. I could feel myself full of happiness, but it was a kind of
happiness I had never experienced before, and my happiness would
spill out of me and run all the way down a long, long road and then
the road would come to an end and I would feel empty and sad, for
what could come after this?...One day, as I was walking toward the
government dispensary to collect some supplies--one of my duties as a
servant to a man who was in love with me beyond anything he could
help and so had long since stopped trying, a man I ignored except
when I wanted him to please me--I met Roland's wife...Roland's wife
called me a whore, a slut, a pig, a snake, a rat, a lowlife, a
parasite, and an evil woman...It was completely without bitterness
that I thought as I looked at her face...'Why does this woman...hate
me so much?' ...I said, again completely without bitterness, 'I
consider it beneath me to fight over a man.' ...the impulse to
possess is alive in every heart, and...I chose to possess myself"
(163-172).

<Therapist Note> Sexual acting-out--"A woman is likely to reveal
herself as a 'whore' " (Vaknin 5); inappropriate affect (patient
has expressed a profound inability to love, yet she professes her
love to a stranger); repetition of the seductive quality of the name
(identity)--note that it is the patient's name that is called out in
this situation AND the previous encounter with Philip--each time the
calling out of her name "imprisons" the object of her desire; lack of
emotion when confronted; repetition of the triangle-relationship
pattern; enunciation of a manic type of happiness in the present
moment, followed by marked depression when contemplating the
future of the relationship (indicating possible bi-polar onset);
continued evidence of narcissistic attitudes and behaviors.

TLR: Xuela, can you describe yourself to me at this point in your
life?

Xuela: That particular day "underneath my dress I worn absolutely
nothing, no undergarments of any kind, only my stockings...I
resembled a tree, a tall tree with long, strong branches; I looked
delicate, but any man I held in my arms knew that I was strong;
my hair was long and thick and deeply waved naturally, and I wore it
braided and pinned up, because when I wore it loose around
my shoulders it caused excitement in other people--some of them men,
some of them women, some of them it pleased, some of
them it did not. The way I walked depended on who I thought would see
me and what effect I wanted my walk to have on them. My face was
beautiful, I found it so" (174).

<Therapist Note> When asked to describe her identity, the patient
describes instead her False Self, based on external physical
appearance and all its sexual potential; the tree metaphor indicates
a "rootedness" in this position; excessive pride in her looks and
strength is further indicative of her pervasive narcissism; "Women
narcissists are likely to emphasize body, looks, charm, sexuality,
feminine "traits", homemaking, children and child-rearing" (Vaknin
5); "There are two functions of the False-Self: 1) It is a proxy
for the True Self. It is tough and hard and can absorb any amount of
pain, hurt and negative emotions without so much as flinching.
By externalizing it, the child develops immunity to the indifference,
manipulation, sadism, or abuse inflicted on him by his parents (or
by other primary objects in his life). It is a shell, protecting him,
rendering him invisible and omnipotent at the same time, and 2) The
False Self is represented by the Narcissist to be his True Self. The
Narcissist is saying, in effect: 'I am not who you think that I am.
I am someone else. I am that (False) Self. Therefore, I deserve a
better, painless, more considerate treatment from the world;' The
False Self is by far more important to the Narcissist than his
dilapidated, dysfunctional, True Self" (Vaknin 4).

TLR: Xuela, can you describe yourself to me as you are today? Who are
you?

Xuela: Who am I?" Who was I?" (225). "Finally, I was a true orphan,
my father had at last died and he died not knowing me, not
ever speaking to me in a language in which I could have faith, a
language in which I could believe the things he said--when I was a
true orphan then, the reality of how alone I had been in the world,
how I would become even more so, brought me an air of peace.
My entire life so far, all seventy years of it, I had dreaded the
moment when I would be alone...but then at last a great peace came
over me, a quietness that was not silence and not acceptance, just a
feeling of peace, a resolve" (223). I am alone and I am not
afraid, I accept it the way I accept all the things that are true of
me. "My mother died at the moment I was born, and so for my
whole life there was nothing standing between myself and eternity; at
my back was always a bleak, black wind" (3). I do not love,
I do not hate. "To this day, I have tried to tell the difference
between them and I cannot, because they wear so much the same
face" (22). I am Xuela. I am what I am what I am. "Am I nothing...? I
do not believe so" (226). "I then and now had and have no
use for redemption" (49); yet "no one can truly judge himself; to
describe your own transgressions is to forgive yourself for them;
to confess your bad deeds is also at once to forgive yourself, and so
silence becomes the only form of self-punishment" (60). I am not
silent.

<Therapist Note> Continued description of the False Self with
glimpses into the True Self; continued narcissistic tendencies along
with inappropriate affective response; patient focuses on the past,
and views the future fatalistically; clear signs of ongoing
depression; with regard to the patient's parents, "As Primary
Objects, the narcissist's parents are often a source of frustration
which leads to repressed or to self-directed aggression. They
traumatize the narcissist during his infancy and childhood and thwart
his healthy development well into his late adolescence. Often, they
are narcissists themselves. Their voices continue to echo in him
as an adult--thus, in the more important respects, the narcissist's
parents never die" (Vaknin).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Xuela. What a piece of work she is. What a self-created piece of art
she is. Left to herself, left to raise herself, she succeeds in
shaping a closed world that runs according to Xuela's laws, despite
the constant fear that the rules of her father's world will
overpower hers--["a self-contained world which Kincaid explores with
great detail" (New York)]. This she will not and cannot
allow, for despite his indifference, his emotional cruelty, his own
overbearing narcissism, Xuela is on a mission throughout her life to
prove that her worth and her value (i.e.: her own indifference,
cruelty and narcissism) in the world equals, if not betters, that of
her
father's own position--that her mother's death was not for nothing.

Unfortunately, for people who suffer the developmental
insufficiencies that later blossom into personality disorders,
this "wearing of
the mask" becomes their permanent skin, as in the case of the image
of her father that she repeatedly shows to us. So-called
"normal" people may love to try on masks, but we all run the risk of
them becoming permanent; if that occurs, the True Self is lost,
never again to surface, and we become strangers to ourselves. One
critic feels that this novel is merely "another in Kincaid's
ongoing cycle of abused-daughter diatribes" (Kurth), yet I feel it
stands as a singular lyric achievement. A look into Xuela's warped
world serves as a warning to us all, for as Jamaica Kincaid herself
says, "I think life is difficult and that's that. I am not at all
interested in the pursuit of happiness. I am not interested in the
pursuit of positivity. I am interested in pursuing a truth, and the
truth
often seems to be not happiness but its opposite" (Snell).

kärlek är något som alltid är aktuellt.
Den har ett ämne och ett budskap som gäller vilken tid man än lever i.
Det gäller vare sig man är rik eller fattig.
Man har problem med klasskillnader och fördomar mot varandra.

There are usually differences in two different versions of something. This can often be seen when a book is made into a movie. There are many similarities and differences in the book and movie versions of To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

 

To begin with, there are many similarities between the book and movie To Kill A Mockingbird. For example, Tom Robinson died in an attempt to escape from prison in both the book and the movie. In my opinion Tom's death was crucial to the original story, and I believe the movie would have been seen as over-sentimental if the scriptwriters had let him live. Another important similarity between the book and movie, is the mutual fascination between Arthur Radley and the children. Arthur, or Boo as the children called him, left them gifts such as dolls, a watch, and chewing gum in the hollow of a tree in his yard. The children made expeditions to the Radley house to look in the window just so they could catch a glimpse of Boo Radley. I believe this captivation was important to the story line because it was the main foundation of the children's imagination. A big part of the story was imagining Boo to be some kind of freak that came out at night to eat cats and squirrels. An additional similarity between the book and movie is the respect showed to Atticus by the African American community of Maycomb. They respected him for his courage, which by his definition meant, "It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."(112). I think the mutual respect between the African Americans and Atticus was important not only to Atticus, but also to his children. Their father and the sad story and memories of Tom Robinson taught them the wrongs of racism. I think if the movie producers had taken out the good relationship between Atticus and the African Americans, it would be taking away one of the most important themes of the story. There are many other significant similarities between the book and the movie.

 

In comparison with the many similarities in the book and movie versions of To Kill A Mockingbird, there are also many differences. One huge difference that was almost impossible to miss, was the absence of Aunt Alexandra. Atticus' sister, Alexandra, was the thorn in Scout's side throughout the book. She always wanted Scout to act more like a lady. Towards the end, she became more like a mother in soothing Scout and trying to reassure her that Jem was not dead. I think Aunt Alexandra was a huge part of the story, and I think they should have kept her in the movie. Be that as it may, the movie moved along quite well without her. I also found there to be huge differences in the trial. For example, although Mayella Ewell, pretended to be very upset by Atticus' questioning, she did not accuse him of mocking her. I thought that this was somewhat significant because it was one of Mayella's tactics for trying to get pity from the jury. A more minor difference, was the combination of Miss Maudie and Miss Rachel. The two neighbors of the Finches were combined into one person for the movie. I do not think it mattered very much, because they served the same purpose in the end. They were there as comfort to Atticus and the children. A larger difference in the movie pertained to Mrs. Dubose. Mrs. Dubose did make a small appearance in the movie, but her role was cut down quite a bit from what it was originally in the book. Mrs. Dubose, a morphine addict, played a large role in Jem's life. She constantly harassed Scout and Jem, insulted their father, and just made life miserable for them. When Jem lost his temper, he took it out on Mrs. Dubose's flower garden. His punishment was to read to Mrs. Dubose to help her break her addiction. When she died, Atticus gave Jem a lesson in what it is to have courage. That entire segment was cut out of the movie. Atticus' quote on courage was one of the most important things in the book, and although the movie was fine without it, I feel that the Mrs. Dubose scenes would have added a lot to the movie.

 

In conclusion, different versions of a creation will always have their differences. This is true in the book and movie versions of To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Summary: Chapter 4

The rest of the school year passes grimly for Scout, who endures a curriculum that moves too slowly and leaves her constantly frustrated in class. After school one day, she passes the Radley Place and sees some tinfoil sticking out of a knothole in one of the Radleys’ oak trees. Scout reaches into the knothole and discovers two pieces of chewing gum. She chews both pieces and tells Jem about it. He panics and makes her spit it out. On the last day of school, however, they find two old “Indian-head” pennies hidden in the same knothole where Scout found the gum and decide to keep them.

Summer comes at last, school ends, and Dill returns to Maycomb. He, Scout, and Jem begin their games again. One of the first things they do is roll one another inside an old tire. On Scout’s turn, she rolls in front of the Radley steps, and Jem and Scout panic. However, this incident gives Jem the idea for their next game: they will play “Boo Radley.” As the summer passes, their game becomes more complicated, until they are acting out an entire Radley family melodrama. Eventually, however, Atticus catches them and asks if their game has anything to do with the Radleys. Jem lies, and Atticus goes back into the house. The kids wonder if it’s safe to play their game anymore

Summary: Chapter 2

September arrives, and Dill leaves Maycomb to return to the town of Meridian. Scout, meanwhile, prepares to go to school for the first time, an event that she has been eagerly anticipating. Once she is finally at school, however, she finds that her teacher, Miss Caroline Fisher, deals poorly with children. When Miss Caroline concludes that Atticus must have taught Scout to read, she becomes very displeased and makes Scout feel guilty for being educated. At recess, Scout complains to Jem, but Jem says that Miss Caroline is just trying out a new method of teaching.

Miss Caroline and Scout get along badly in the afternoon as well. Walter Cunningham, a boy in Scout’s class, has not brought a lunch. Miss Caroline offers him a quarter to buy lunch, telling him that he can pay her back tomorrow. Walter’s family is large and poor—so poor that they pay Atticus with hickory nuts, turnip greens, or other goods when they need legal help—and Walter will never be able to pay the teacher back or bring a lunch to school. When Scout attempts to explain these circumstances, however, Miss Caroline fails to understand and grows so frustrated that she slaps Scout’s hand with a ruler

Summary: Chapter 3

At lunch, Scout rubs Walter’s nose in the dirt for getting her in trouble, but Jem intervenes and invites Walter to lunch (in the novel, as in certain regions of the country, the midday meal is called “dinner”). At the Finch house, Walter and Atticus discuss farm conditions “like two men,” and Walter puts molasses all over his meat and vegetables, to Scout’s horror. When she criticizes Walter, however, Calpurnia calls her into the kitchen to scold her and slaps her as she returns to the dining room, telling her to be a better hostess. Back at school, Miss Caroline becomes terrified when a tiny bug, or “cootie,” crawls out of a boy’s hair. The boy is Burris Ewell, a member of the Ewell clan, which is even poorer and less respectable than the Cunningham clan. In fact, Burris only comes to school the first day of every school year, making a token appearance to avoid trouble with the law. He leaves the classroom, making enough vicious remarks to cause the teacher to cry.

At home, Atticus follows Scout outside to ask her if something is wrong, to which she responds that she is not feeling well. She tells him that she does not think she will go to school anymore and suggests that he could teach her himself. Atticus replies that the law demands that she go to school, but he promises to keep reading to her, as long as she does not tell her teacher about it.

Analysis: Chapters 2–3

Scout’s unpleasant first day of school has a threefold purpose: it locates the reader’s sympathies firmly with the narrator; it offers a further introduction to Maycomb’s tortured social ladder; and it provides sharp social commentary on the theme of children and education, one of the book’s most important themes. In her interactions with Miss Caroline, Scout is victimized by her teacher’s inexperience; Scout means well but receives only punishment in return. The rigid, impersonal protocols demanded by the law and by Miss Caroline’s method of teaching are shown to be insufficient and irrational—Burris Ewell can keep the law happy by coming to school only one day a year, while Scout incurs her teacher’s wrath simply by learning to read at an early age. This topsy-turvy educational outlook fails catastrophically to meet the needs of either student. Scout, who is commonsensical enough to perceive this failure immediately, is frustrated by her inability to understand why her teacher acts as she does, and why she, Scout, continually incurs disfavor for well-intentioned actions.

Throughout these chapters, Scout’s well-meaning missteps (telling the teacher about Walter’s poverty, criticizing Walter for putting molasses on his meat and vegetables) earn harsh rebukes from the adult world, emphasizing the contrast between the comfortable, imaginative childhood world that Scout occupies in Chapter 1 and the more grown-up world she is now expected to occupy. This interaction sets a pattern for the book and for the basic development of Scout as a character: whether dealing with adults or with other children, Scout always means well, and her nature is essentially good. Her mistakes are honest mistakes, and while there is evil all around her in the novel, it does not infect her, nor does injustice disillusion her, as it does Jem. At the end of Chapter 2, Scout, acting on her best intentions (as always), tries to explain the Cunninghams to Miss Caroline

Young Walter Cunningham is the first glimpse we get of the Cunningham clan, part of the large population of poor farmers in the land around Maycomb. Walter’s poverty introduces the very adult theme of social class into the novel. Scout notes in Chapter 1 that Maycomb was a run-down town caught up in the Great Depression, but so far, we have seen only the upper-class side of town, represented by relatively successful and comfortable characters such as Atticus. Now, however, we begin to see the rest of Maycomb, represented by the struggling Cunninghams and the dirt-poor Ewells. Jem later divides Maycomb into four social classes, placing the Cunninghams a level beneath the other families in the town (Walter’s fondness for molasses on all of his food illustrates the difference in status between his family and the Finches).

A correlation between social status and moral goodness becomes evident as the novel progresses. At the top of this pyramid rests Atticus, a comparatively wealthy man whose moral standing is beyond reproach. Beneath him are the poor farmers such as the Cunninghams. The Ewells are below even the Cunninghams on the social ladder, and their unapologetic, squalid ignorance and ill tempers quickly make them the villains of the story. We do not encounter them again until Part Two, but Burris’s vicious cruelty in this section foreshadows the later behavior of his father, Bob Ewell

Miss Caroline’s teaching methods, meanwhile, facilitate Lee’s subtle critique of educational orthodoxy. Miss Caroline cannot accept that Scout already knows how to read and write, because it confounds the teaching formula that she has been taught to implement. She adheres strictly to a “method” that she learned from adults, instead of learning from her experiences in the classroom and adapting her teaching accordingly. To Scout, this method is dull; to the reader, it exemplifies how well-meaning but rigid thinking can fail. Just as Atticus encourages Scout to place herself in another person’s position before she judges that person, Miss Caroline would do better to try to think like her students and respond to their needs rather than simply trying to impose an external system on their education. Throughout the novel, Atticus’s moral position of sympathy and understanding is contrasted with rigid, impersonal systems such as Miss Caroline’s that fail to account for individual necessities. In this sense, Miss Caroline’s behavior in the schoolhouse foreshadows the courtroom scenes later in the novel, when the system that fails is not an educational technique but the law

The story that constitutes almost the entirety of To Kill a Mockingbird is set in the time between Scout Finch’s fifth and ninth birthdays, but Scout presumably commences the first-person narrative that opens the novel much later in her life. As a result, the narrative voice fluctuates between the child’s point of view, chronicling the events as they happen, and the adult voice, looking back on her childhood many years later. The child’s naïve voice dominates the central plot, allowing the reader to make connections and understand events in a way that the young Scout does not. At the same time, the narrative often digresses into anecdotes or descriptions presented retrospectively, like Scout’s depiction of Maycomb in the first chapter: “Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. . . . Somehow, it was hotter then . . . [p]eople moved slowly then.” Here, Lee’s language indicates an adult’s recollection rather than a girl’s experience.

Structurally, To Kill a Mockingbird is circular: the story begins where it ends. The first line of the novel introduces Jem’s broken arm, and the novel then flashes back to cover the events leading up to his accident. The narrator uses this device to provide background for the Finch family, introducing the legendary Simon Finch and his three descendants. But at this stage of the novel, the family history is treated as background information, of secondary importance to the private world of the young Finch children. In this way, the first chapter provides only a brief sketch of Atticus, whose importance increases as the novel progresses. Jem and Scout are the center of the story, filling it with their world of imagination and superstition, centered on town myths such as the curious history of Boo Radley and imaginative diversions such as acting out stories from books

Dill dominates this early part of the novel: he is only a summer visitor, with no connection to Maycomb’s adult world. As this adult world asserts itself later in the novel, Dill fades from the story. For now, however, the novel appropriates Dill’s childhood perspective and only hints at the darker, more adult problems that will intrude on Jem and Scout. One of the central themes of To Kill a Mockingbird is the process of growing up and developing a more mature perspective on life. Correspondingly, the narrative gradually comes to mirror a loss of innocence, as the carefree childhood of this first chapter is slowly replaced by a darker, more dangerous, and more cynical adult story in which the children are only minor participants

Boo Radley becomes the focus of the children’s curiosity in Chapter 1. As befits the perspective of childhood innocence, the recluse is given no identity apart from the youthful superstitions that surround him: Scout describes him as a “malevolent phantom” over six feet tall who eats squirrels and cats. Of course, the reader realizes that there must be more to Boo’s story than these superstitions imply. Eventually, Boo will be transformed from a nightmare villain into a human being, and the children’s understanding of him will reflect their own journey toward adulthood

The story is narrated by a young girl named Jean Louise Finch, who is almost always called by her nickname, Scout. Scout starts to explain the circumstances that led to the broken arm that her older brother, Jem, sustained many years earlier; she begins by recounting her family history. The first of her ancestors to come to America was a fur-trader and apothecary named Simon Finch, who fled England to escape religious persecution and established a successful farm on the banks of the Alabama River. The farm, called Finch’s Landing, supported the family for many years. The first Finches to make a living away from the farm were Scout’s father, Atticus Finch, who became a lawyer in the nearby town of Maycomb, and his brother, Jack Finch, who went to medical school in Boston. Their sister, Alexandra Finch, stayed to run the Landing.

A successful lawyer, Atticus makes a solid living in Maycomb, a tired, poor, old town in the grips of the Great Depression. He lives with Jem and Scout on Maycomb’s main residential street. Their cook, an old black woman namedCalpurnia, helps to raise the children and keep the house. Atticus’s wife died when Scout was two, so she does not remember her mother well. But Jem, four years older than Scout, has memories of their mother that sometimes make him unhappy.

In the summer of 1933, when Jem is nearly ten and Scout almost six, a peculiar boy named Charles Baker Harris moves in next door. The boy, who calls himself Dill, stays for the summer with his aunt, Miss Rachel Haverford, who owns the house next to the Finches’. Dill doesn’t like to discuss his father’s absence from his life, but he is otherwise a talkative and extremely intelligent boy who quickly becomes the Finch children’s chief playmate. All summer, the three act out various stories that they have read. When they grow bored of this activity, Dill suggests that they attempt to lure Boo Radley, a mysterious neighbor, out of his house.

Arthur “Boo” Radley lives in the run-down Radley Place, and no one has seen him outside it in years. Scout recounts how, as a boy, Boo got in trouble with the law and his father imprisoned him in the house as punishment. He was not heard from until fifteen years later, when he stabbed his father with a pair of scissors. Although people suggested that Boo was crazy, old Mr. Radley refused to have his son committed to an asylum. When the old man died, Boo’s brother, Nathan, came to live in the house with Boo. Nevertheless, Boo continued to stay inside.

Dill is fascinated by Boo and tries to convince the Finch children to help him lure this phantom of Maycomb outside. Eventually, he dares Jem to run over and touch the house. Jem does so, sprinting back hastily; there is no sign of movement at the Radley Place, although Scout thinks that she sees a shutter move slightly, as if someone were peeking out.

Jem

If Scout is an innocent girl who is exposed to evil at an early age and forced to develop an adult moral outlook, Jem finds himself in an even more turbulent situation. His shattering experience at Tom Robinson’s trial occurs just as he is entering puberty, a time when life is complicated and traumatic enough. His disillusionment upon seeing that justice does not always prevail leaves him vulnerable and confused at a critical, formative point in his life. Nevertheless, he admirably upholds the commitment to justice that Atticus instilled in him and maintains it with deep conviction throughout the novel.

Unlike the jaded Mr. Raymond, Jem is not without hope: Atticus tells Scout that Jem simply needs time to process what he has learned. The strong presence of Atticus in Jem’s life seems to promise that he will recover his equilibrium. Later in his life, Jem is able to see that Boo Radley’s unexpected aid indicates there is good in people. Even before the end of the novel, Jem shows signs of having learned a positive lesson from the trial; for instance, at the beginning of Chapter 25, he refuses to allow Scout to squash a roly-poly bug because it has done nothing to harm her. After seeing the unfair destruction of Tom Robinson, Jem now wants to protect the fragile and harmless.

The idea that Jem resolves his cynicism and moves toward a happier life is supported by the beginning of the novel, in which a grown-up Scout remembers talking to Jem about the events that make up the novel’s plot. Scout says that Jem pinpointed the children’s initial interest in Boo Radley at the beginning of the story, strongly implying that he understood what Boo represented to them and, like Scout, managed to shed his innocence without losing his hope.

Scout

Scout is a very unusual little girl, both in her own qualities and in her social position. She is unusually intelligent (she learns to read before beginning school), unusually confident (she fights boys without fear), unusually thoughtful (she worries about the essential goodness and evil of mankind), and unusually good (she always acts with the best intentions). In terms of her social identity, she is unusual for being a tomboy in the prim and proper Southern world of Maycomb.

One quickly realizes when reading To Kill a Mockingbird that Scout is who she is because of the way Atticus has raised her. He has nurtured her mind, conscience, and individuality without bogging her down in fussy social hypocrisies and notions of propriety. While most girls in Scout’s position would be wearing dresses and learning manners, Scout, thanks to Atticus’s hands-off parenting style, wears overalls and learns to climb trees with Jem and Dill. She does not always grasp social niceties (she tells her teacher that one of her fellow students is too poor to pay her back for lunch), and human behavior often baffles her (as when one of her teachers criticizes Hitler’s prejudice against Jews while indulging in her own prejudice against blacks), but Atticus’s protection of Scout from hypocrisy and social pressure has rendered her open, forthright, and well meaning

At the beginning of the novel, Scout is an innocent, good-hearted five-year-old child who has no experience with the evils of the world. As the novel progresses, Scout has her first contact with evil in the form of racial prejudice, and the basic development of her character is governed by the question of whether she will emerge from that contact with her conscience and optimism intact or whether she will be bruised, hurt, or destroyed like Boo Radley and Tom Robinson. Thanks to Atticus’s wisdom, Scout learns that though humanity has a great capacity for evil, it also has a great capacity for good, and that the evil can often be mitigated if one approaches others with an outlook of sympathy and understanding. Scout’s development into a person capable of assuming that outlook marks the culmination of the novel and indicates that, whatever evil she encounters, she will retain her conscience without becoming cynical or jaded. Though she is still a child at the end of the book, Scout’s perspective on life develops from that of an innocent child into that of a near grown-up

Atticus

As one of the most prominent citizens in Maycomb during the Great Depression, Atticus is relatively well off in a time of widespread poverty. Because of his penetrating intelligence, calm wisdom, and exemplary behavior, Atticus is respected by everyone, including the very poor. He functions as the moral backbone of Maycomb, a person to whom others turn in times of doubt and trouble. But the conscience that makes him so admirable ultimately causes his falling out with the people of Maycomb. Unable to abide the town’s comfortable ingrained racial prejudice, he agrees to defend Tom Robinson, a black man. Atticus’s action makes him the object of scorn in Maycomb, but he is simply too impressive a figure to be scorned for long. After the trial, he seems destined to be held in the same high regard as before.

Atticus practices the ethic of sympathy and understanding that he preaches to Scout and Jem and never holds a grudge against the people of Maycomb. Despite their callous indifference to racial inequality, Atticus sees much to admire in them. He recognizes that people have both good and bad qualities, and he is determined to admire the good while understanding and forgiving the bad. Atticus passes this great moral lesson on to Scout—this perspective protects the innocent from being destroyed by contact with evil.

Ironically, though Atticus is a heroic figure in the novel and a respected man in Maycomb, neither Jem nor Scout consciously idolizes him at the beginning of the novel. Both are embarrassed that he is older than other fathers and that he doesn’t hunt or fish. But Atticus’s wise parenting, which he sums up in Chapter 30 by saying, “Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back at him,” ultimately wins their respect. By the end of the novel, Jem, in particular, is fiercely devoted to Atticus (Scout, still a little girl, loves him uncritically). Though his children’s attitude toward him evolves, Atticus is characterized throughout the book by his absolute consistency. He stands rigidly committed to justice and thoughtfully willing to view matters from the perspectives of others. He does not develop in the novel but retains these qualities in equal measure, making him the novel’s moral guide and voice of conscience.

Jean Louise “Scout” Finch -  The narrator and protagonist of the story. Scout lives with her father, Atticus, her brother, Jem, and their black cook, Calpurnia, in Maycomb. She is intelligent and, by the standards of her time and place, a tomboy. Scout has a combative streak and a basic faith in the goodness of the people in her community. As the novel progresses, this faith is tested by the hatred and prejudice that emerge during Tom Robinson’s trial. Scout eventually develops a more grown-up perspective that enables her to appreciate human goodness without ignoring human evil.

Atticus Finch -  Scout and Jem’s father, a lawyer in Maycomb descended from an old local family. A widower with a dry sense of humor, Atticus has instilled in his children his strong sense of morality and justice. He is one of the few residents of Maycomb committed to racial equality. When he agrees to defend Tom Robinson, a black man charged with raping a white woman, he exposes himself and his family to the anger of the white community. With his strongly held convictions, wisdom, and empathy, Atticus functions as the novel’s moral backbone.

Jeremy Atticus “Jem” Finch -  Scout’s brother and constant playmate at the beginning of the story. Jem is something of a typical American boy, refusing to back down from dares and fantasizing about playing football. Four years older than Scout, he gradually separates himself from her games, but he remains her close companion and protector throughout the novel. Jem moves into adolescence during the story, and his ideals are shaken badly by the evil and injustice that he perceives during the trial of Tom Robinson.

Arthur “Boo” Radley -  A recluse who never sets foot outside his house, Boo dominates the imaginations of Jem, Scout, and Dill. He is a powerful symbol of goodness swathed in an initial shroud of creepiness, leaving little presents for Scout and Jem and emerging at an opportune moment to save the children. An intelligent child emotionally damaged by his cruel father, Boo provides an example of the threat that evil poses to innocence and goodness. He is one of the novel’s “mockingbirds,” a good person injured by the evil of mankind.

Bob Ewell -  A drunken, mostly unemployed member of Maycomb’s poorest family. In his knowingly wrongful accusation that Tom Robinson raped his daughter, Ewell represents the dark side of the South: ignorance, poverty, squalor, and hate-filled racial prejudice.


Charles Baker “Dill” Harris -  Jem and Scout’s summer neighbor and friend. Dill is a diminutive, confident boy with an active imagination. He becomes fascinated with Boo Radley and represents the perspective of childhood innocence throughout the novel

Miss Maudie Atkinson -  The Finches’ neighbor, a sharp-tongued widow, and an old friend of the family. Miss Maudie is almost the same age as Atticus’s younger brother, Jack. She shares Atticus’s passion for justice and is the children’s best friend among Maycomb’s adults.