Templeton's Peace Trent Devell Hudley University of Texas at El Paso, [email protected]
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University of Texas at El Paso DigitalCommons@UTEP Open Access Theses & Dissertations 2009-01-01 Templeton's Peace Trent Devell Hudley University of Texas at El Paso, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd Part of the American Literature Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, and the Modern Literature Commons Recommended Citation Hudley, Trent Devell, "Templeton's Peace" (2009). Open Access Theses & Dissertations. 285. https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd/285 This is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UTEP. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UTEP. For more information, please contact [email protected]. TEMPLETON’S PEACE TRENT D. HUDLEY Department of Creative Writing APPROVED: Daniel Chacón, MFA, Committee Chair Johnny Payne, Ph.D. Mimi Gladstein, Ph.D. Patricia D. Witherspoon, Ph.D. Dean of the Graduate School Copyright © by Trent Hudley May 2009 Dedication To everyone I’ve ever hurt TEMPLETON’S PEACE by TRENT D. HUDLEY THESIS Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at El Paso in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF FINE ARTS Department of Creative Writing THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO May 2009 Acknowledgements First I would like to thank my parents, Darrold and Majorie Hudley for their continued support in all that I have done. They have been there for me throughout everything whether it was for my accomplishments or things less noble. I owe them my heart. I would also like to thank my sisters Danielle and Monique for all the encouragement and compliments they have given me throughout this endeavor. I want to give a special thanks to my aunt, Natalie Pichon who has been a fan of my writing since my first scribbling. Without her encouragement I probably would not be writing this acknowledgement in the first place I would also like to thank Daniel Chacon, my thesis director and good friend, for his incredible guidance through the production of this piece. His expert comments and suggestions were invaluable to the completion of this book. I also need to thank him for his patience with me for getting things in late all the time. A huge thank you needs to go to Dr. Johnny Payne and Dr. Mimi Gladstein who sat on my thesis defense committee. Thank you for your time and effort. It is greatly appreciated. Further thanks goes to all my friends in the Bi-Lingual MFA program at the University of Texas at El Paso. But special thanks have to go to my comrades in arms, Verónica Guajardo and Jose Palacios. We gotta do The Big Apple together again amigos. Stay your wonderful selves. I Love You Much! Peace! And last, but most definitely not least, I want to thank all my friends at The Lighthouse Writer’s Workshops, especially Andrea Dupree, for helping me get here. Also, to Renee Ruderman my wonderful teacher as an undergrad, and also my awesome friend Tyrone Jager. Thank you all so very much. I couldn’t have done it without all of you. Peace! v Table of Contents Acknowledgements..........................................................................................................................v Table of Contents........................................................................................................................... vi Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter 1…………………………………………………………………………………………18 Chapter 2…………………………………………………………………………………………39 Chapter 3…………………………………………………………………………………………55 Chapter 4…………………………………………………………………………………………71 Chapter 5…………………………………………………………………………………………81 Chapter 6…………………………………………………………………………………………89 Chapter 7…………………………………………………………………………………………96 Chapter 8………………………………………………………………………………………..102 Chapter 9………………………………………………………………………………………..109 Chapter 10………………………………………………………………………………………127 Chapter 11………………………………………………………………………………………132 Chapter 12………………………………………………………………………………………160 Chapter 13………………………………………………………………………………………168 Chapter 14………………………………………………………………………………………183 Chapter 15………………………………………………………………………………………192 Chapter 16………………………………………………………………………………………204 Chapter 17………………………………………………………………………………………216 Chapter 18………………………………………………………………………………………225 Chapter 19………………………………………………………………………………………228 Chapter 20………………………………………………………………………………………232 Chapter 21………………………………………………………………………………………243 vi Chapter 22………………………………………………………………………………………246 Chapter 23………………………………………………………………………………………264 Chapter 24………………………………………………………………………………………277 Chapter 25………………………………………………………………………………………284 Chapter 26………………………………………………………………………………………288 Chapter 27………………………………………………………………………………………299 Chapter 28………………………………………………………………………………………308 Chapter 29………………………………………………………………………………………313 Chapter 30………………………………………………………………………………………316 Chapter 31………………………………………………………………………………………320 Chapter 32………………………………………………………………………………………324 Chapter 33………………………………………………………………………………………333 Chapter 34………………………………………………………………………………………345 Chapter 35………………………………………………………………………………………346 Vita……………………………………………………………………………………………...352 vii Introduction This novel is essentially about change. Change isn’t a grand theme. In fact it can probably be seen as cliché. But change is inevitable, and the reoccurring investigation of the theme implies its importance. It is the only thing that is completely dependable. The only constant. The only absolute. Yet a strange dichotomy arises when change is taken into consideration within the realm of the human condition. Most people do not like change. The majority of people in the world seek to keep change at bay and create some type of stability in their lives. Most of our endeavors are attempts to secure a particular way of life that is insulated from the assault of change. Yet it is the big changes in life that are most important to us: the continuing process of advancement in our education, the transformation from a single lifestyle into marriage, the addition of life through childbirth, the celebration of change with birthdays, and the biggest ritual for the grandest transition, the funeral’s celebration of death. This contradiction, the insistent need for stability in an ever changing universe is what interests me about the topic of change. I like the fact that in our search for a constant, for stability, the only thing that we can truly count on to be stable is change. Lao Tzu says: Thus Something and Nothing produce each other; The difficult and the easy complement each other; The long and the short off-set each other; The high and the low incline toward each other; 1 Note and sound harmonize with each other; Before and after follow each other. Lao Tzu is talking about the constant play of the universe, the constant impermanence, the change that constitutes all things. Don Juan Mathos tells Carlos Castaneda that to be a warrior he can’t divorce himself from the world, his world of chaos and change, and escape into a place where there are no challenges and only stability. He has to embrace change to grow as a human being and act with complete mindfulness. In the teaching of the Buddha, the first teaching in the Eightfold Path to Enlightenment is to have the Right View. Buddha taught his disciples that the things of the world are impermanent and transitory and to cling to the things of the world, to cling to the illusion of permanence is to bring about suffering. To scramble all of one’s life to stave of change is to not live, but to dwell in illusion. There is a quote by John Keats that played through my mind often as I wrote this book. It is his idea of what he called “the impersonality of genius”. He states “The only means of strengthening one’s intellect is to make up one’s mind about nothing—to let mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts”. To let the power of creative forces penetrate one’s being, to embrace existence in all its fullness, one can’t cling to ideas or objects that are transitory. One must let the universe wash over one’s self to know it. One must be comfortable with the fact of change. That’s what Keats is saying, I believe. This same idea is found in Heidegger’s idea of “dwelling poetically” in which he claims that technology, his term for ossified and dead language, which he claims stifles one’s connection with a true, deep meaningful relationship with life can be equated with clinging to transitory ideas and objects. Robert Creeley’s theory of poetic composition is also similar to Keats idea. Creeley says that one can’t set out to create a poem rather the poet must let the poem arise out of his/her connection to the environment. The poet shouldn’t impose preconceived, hardened, dead ideas on a 2 composition, like Keats’ mind the poet should be receptive to what arises naturally from the particular environment, space that he/she is occupying. In other words let the changes that are taking place around you influence you. Let them unfold as they do and embrace them. That is what Lao Tzu meant by the constant way. The main character in this novel, Templeton, intellectualizes change. He yearns for something different, for a connection that makes sense of his existence. He craves and loves life, but cannot find the strands that can bring the pieces, the fragments of this yearning into a coherent whole. So he turns away from it in frustration and lives in a world shut off from what he really wants and which manifest in actions of misanthropy, self-destruction and desperation. The main focus of this novel, although