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Winter 2018 Full Issue Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism Volume 11 Article 19 Issue 1 Volume 11, Issue 1 (Winter 2018) 4-2018 Winter 2018 Full Issue Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/criterion Part of the English Language and Literature Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation (2018) "Winter 2018 Full Issue," Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism: Vol. 11 : Iss. 1 , Article 19. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/criterion/vol11/iss1/19 This Full Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the All Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. “If you compare several representative passages of the greatest poetry you see how great is the variety of types of combination, and also how completely any semi- ethical criterion of 'sublimity' misses the mark. For it is not the 'greatness,' the intensity, of the emotions, the components, but the intensity of the artistic process, the pressure, so to speak, under which the fusion takes place, that counts.” v T. S. Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent" Criterion is published by the BYU Department of English. The contents represent the opinions and beliefs of the authors and not necessarily those of the editors, staff, advisors, Brigham Young University, or its sponsoring institution, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. See scholarsarchive.byu.edu/criterion for more information. © Copyright 2018 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or others, without written permission of the publisher. Printed by Brigham Young University Press. Provo, Utah, USA. Cover design by Elias Gold Staff Editors-in-Chief Editors Makayla Okamura Natasha Andersen Heidi Moe Graviet McKay Hansen Megan Anderson Tess Jackson Nina Anderson Rebecca Mason Assistant Editor-in-Chief Heather Bergeson Ryan Meservey Maren E. Loveland Adam Brantley Michela Miller Lauren Brunken Brittany Passmore Faculty Advisor Hailey Kate Chatlin Becca Purse Michael Taylor Hannah DeTavis Jessica Reschke Sariah Fales Isaac Robertson Benjamin Gappmayer Alexandra Smith Bayley Goldsberry Elizabeth Swan contents ii Editors’ Note Silence and Self-Harm 1 Understanding Unconventional Voices in The Things They Carried Sarah Cannon Three Books, Three Stereotypes 11 Mothers and the Ghosts of Mammy, Jezebel, and Sapphire in Contemporary African American Literature Christine Eck “Sprinkled, Cleansed, and Comforted” 25 The Early American Jail Jacob Johnson Reclaiming the Black Personhood 33 The Power of the Hip-Hop Narrative in Mainstream Rap Music Morgan Klatskin The Uncomfortable Self 49 Emily Dickinson’s Reflections on Consciousness Charlotte Kupsh The Fluid Pastoral 63 African American Spiritual Waterways in the Urban Landscapes of Harlem Renaissance Poetry Maren E. Loveland Fashionable Piety 73 Evelyn Waugh’s Critique of Theological Modernism in Decline and Fall and Vile Bodies Deirdre Murphy How Drag Culture Resolves Tensions in 87 Victorian Shakespearean Cross-Dressing Or, Slay, Feste, Slay Isaac Robertson Approaching Indigeneity, Learning 99 Modernity Christine Bold A Slowly Starving Race 107 Land and the Language of Hunger in Zitkala-Ša’s “Blue-Star Woman” Adam Brantley The Sun Dance Opera 117 A Call for Native Survivance Lorin Groesbeck Bloodland 125 A Holistic Approach to Contemporary Reclamation of Native Female Power Anna Kendall Stepping Out of Photographs 135 Stopping the Myth of the Vanishing Native through Reclaiming Personhood in The Edward Curtis Project Mari Murdock “Nourished by My Mother” 143 Zitkala-Ša and the Indian Sterilization Project Lainey Wardlow 152 Contributors Editors’ Note Before we thank everyone who made the Winter 2018 issue of Criterion possible, Makayla would like to personally bid farewell to the journal she has been working with for the past three years. “I’ve learned more about editing, publishing, and teamwork from Criterion than I ever thought I would know, and the insights I’ve gained have already led me to incredible opportunities. I look forward to keeping up with the journal’s publications in the future.” Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism is an entirely volunteer-run student journal at Brigham Young University. We have had a remarkably dedicated staff of students this semester, and this issue would not have been possible without them. Each person brought a level of skill and enthusiasm which was invaluable to the publication process. We also want to express our thanks to Professor Mike Taylor, who excelled for the second semester in his new position as faculty advisor The theme for this issue of Criterion is Indiginous literature. We would like to thank Dr. Christine Bold from the University of Guelph for providing the forum prompt, “Approaching Indigineity, Learning Modernity.” We are publishing five articles in response to the prompt, each providing a unique perspective on interpreting Indigenous literature. Three of these specifically address the works of Yankton Dakota Sioux writer and musician Zitkala-Ša, who shares a special relationship with BYU given that she wrote the first Native American opera in collaboration with a professor here at the university; many of her personal documents are housed here as part of the Gertrude and Raymond Bonnin Collection of the L. Tom Perry Special Collections repository. It is nearly impossible to adequately thank everyone who contributes to the production of a student journal. That being said, we would like to thank the BYU Department of English for the resources and guidance they provide. We would also like to thank Elias Gold for designing our cover. Most importantly, we would like to thank all of our readers for their interest in our journal. We hope that you will be inspired by the pieces that we publish. We recieved an impressive pool of submissions in response to our open submission call and we are excited to publish the articles that best demonstrate both intriguing criticism and excellent writing. We are pleased to present you with articles on a broad variety of topics, ranging from literary analysis of hip hop lyrics to commentary on Shakespearean cross-dressing through the lens of contemporary drag-culture. We hope you enjoy the journal that we have prepared this semester. Without further ado, we are proud to present our readers with the Winter 2018 issue of Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism. Makayla Okamura and McKay Hansen Silence and Self-Harm Understanding Unconventional Voices in The Things They Carried Sarah Cannon For the soldiers in Tim O’Brien’s collection of short stories, The Things They Carried, silence is a catalyst for self- harm. After Dave Jensen breaks Lee Strunk’s nose in “Enemies,” O’Brien describes “a silent tension between them” (60), and it is inside that silence that Jensen decides to hurt himself. In “Notes,” Norman Bowker never speaks of his trauma either. After his suicide, his mother says, “Norman was a quiet boy . I don’t suppose he wanted to bother anybody” (154). Both Jensen’s self-inflicted violence and Bowker’s suicide are coupled with descriptions about silence and a lack of communication. These moments pull readers into the critical conversation surrounding war trauma and communication, which are commonly characterized as being incompatible. In fact, critics address this concept most often as the “incommunicability of war” (Smith). The theory argues that war is impossible to articulate because of how traumatic it is. Literary critic Susan Farrell, brings in a clinical perspective, explaining that “traumatic memories tend to be . ‘wordless,’” but then ironically explains that the best process of recovery “must involve a narrativization of traumatic events” (186). This paradigm is based on the dilemma that in order to heal, soldiers Criterion must use words to articulate something that is wordless, which is impossible. It places soldiers behind the seemingly impassable barrier of silence on the road to healing. While these critics read silence as an inevitable barrier toward healing, The Things They Carried actually suggests a more productive interpretation. Tim O’Brien’s novel explores the problems of this narrow definition and exposes an understanding and response to silence that contributes toward healing rather than hinders it. His words inform not only the literary conversation, but also the conversation regarding non-fictional U.S. veterans, who, according to a recent veteran suicide assessment, are twice as likely to die of suicide compared with non-veterans in the general population (Darkins 272). The novel reworks our understanding of silence until silence no longer barricades conversation, but facilitates it. Despite the claims of truth being unattainable and war being incommunicable, The Things They Carried actually reveals the communicative power of war. O’Brien presents trauma not as an isolated event to be articulated, but rather a dimension of space—an alternate reality—that soldiers enter through the door of a disturbing event. Language, in this dimension, is not a functional medium of communication but a rigid container inside which the truth of trauma simply does not fit. Trauma’s dimensions prove to be incompatible with the chronological normalcy of spoken language, so self-imposed violence instead assumes the role of functional communication by becoming not merely an indicator of mental instability but also an expression of complex truth. These truths have a voice—not in sound, but in silence. By perceiving silence as something to listen to, healing is made possible, since healing, in the text, is the act of being heard. Listeners can hear and respond to the trauma in whatever language it may be, producing a level of understanding that is not simply the digestion of compact squares of information, but an assumption of responsibility on the part of the listener to accept that message in whatever form it may be and respond to it.
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