Perception is Reality: The Theory of Relativity in Art
June 12, 2007
Relativity is the premier guiding force in twentieth century thought and art. It is the idea that no independent absolute value exists but rather every moral decision or truth that one believes, is true only from their frame of reference and particular time. Truth becomes what is meaningful or significant within a given context. In order to understand the many different styles of literature, art and music that came about in the early twentieth century one must understand relativity and how that idea alone has had a profound impact upon how artists, authors and musicians create and convey their works of art.
The impact of relativity is evident in works such as Wassily Kandinsky’s essay Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Igor Stravinsky’s article entitled Poetry of Music, Friedrich Nietzsche’s book Beyond Good and Evil, T.S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land, and Pablo Picasso’s painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.
To illustrate the influence that the idea of relativity has had on modern works of art and to show how it has vastly transformed the styles that many artists have used to create their art, we will first examine Wassily Kandinsky’s work.
In his essay Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Kandinsky refers to relativity when he argues that absolute freedom must be given to the artist. Artists before Kandinsky only tried to express themselves by imitating nature to convey their message. However, Kandinsky says that the artist should be free from being forced to fit his expression into the mold of nature. He should be free to paint what he is really trying to express. In other words the objects and colors of the picture are relative. In Concerning the Spiritual in Art Kandinsky discusses what is good painting and drawing and he tells us that good drawing cannot be altered without destroying its inner value, irrespective of its correctness as anatomical or natural structure. He then has the reader question not the violation of natural form, but the need of the artist for such a form. He says the artist is not only justified in using, but is actually obligated to use only those things that are absolutely necessary to his painting. Specifically, Kandinsky says, “colors are not to be used because they are true to nature but because they are necessary to the particular picture” (Kandinsky, 535). The entire purpose of the picture is to convey a message that the artist is trying to communicate by use of an image. To mottle both the picture and the message by adding unnecessary form or structure, or needless color, defeats the very purpose of the picture in the first place. The communication is lost to convention. Everything that the artist puts into his painting must be for a purpose and be a part of the complete conveyance. The colors in a work of art are only relative to the message, not to the form of nature itself. Kandinsky was one of the first artists to argue that there was no need to copy nature or physical form but rather only the shapes and colors necessary to the art should be used.
Igor Stravinsky’s article Poetics of Music is another example of relativity greatly influencing a 20th century artist. Stravinsky produced a vastly different style of music by applying the principles of relativity to music. Relativity in music is not abandoning all rules and form, but rather imposing rules that may be different than what others in a different frame of reference may be used to. In his article he explains that the more constraints one imposes on themselves, the more free they will become from the chains that shackle their spirit. He is telling us that one must have some sort of rules and guidelines that govern that individual’s creation of art. Earlier in the article Poetics of Music Stravinsky says, “My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles” (Stravinsky, 547). Here he explains to us that one may only reach the furthest points of creativity by building upon a foundation and taking the art further than it has previously been. This kind of progress and structure cannot be attained by randomly throwing pieces together but rather it must be the product of a purposeful work carefully constructed together to enable the artist to fully express his intentions. Art must be bound by rules, though those rules are not always the same rules that are accepted as common practice. To create art that is random and chaotic is to limit one’s creativity to mere chance. The rules that Stravinsky used were actually much stricter that the common musical rules of the day. However, in imposing on himself a more rigorous set of rules, relative to his own ideas, he was able to actually create more.
Another example of relativity in literature is Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. Nietzsche demonstrates the idea of relativity in his description of how the master moralist determines value. From part nine of Nietzsche’s work, subtitled “What is Noble?” he describes for us the vast difference between the noble, or master, moralist and the slave moralist. The slave, he says desires only comfort and will conform to the morals and values of those around him. He simply seeks safety from the hardships in life. The master however has a completely different viewpoint. The master is willing to take risks and suffer hardship, so that he may learn from them and overcome. He does not just ignorantly accept the values of those around him, but rather he seeks to create his own values from his experiences and judgment. Unlike the slave who seeks only comfort, the master desires more, he desires true self-satisfaction. Nietzsche tells us, “The noble kind of man experiences himself as a person who determines value and does not need to have other people’s approval. He makes the judgment ‘What is harmful to me is harmful in itself.’ He understands himself as something which in general first confers honor on things, as someone who creates values” (Nietzsche, 5). In this text Nietzsche explains how the values of the master are not determined by other people. The noble man creates his values from the lessons he has learned in overcoming the hardship that he has faced. He understands that the values he holds are not objective truths that are always true. They are relative only to the time and place which he is currently in. The values, though still important, are not eternal and not the same for all men all the time.
In T.S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land, he demonstrates relativity in the way in which throughout the poem he abruptly switches both the character speaking and time frame. In this poem Eliot talks about the decline and desperate times of people. It breaks from many poems of an earlier time, which are commonly fluid and story-like, by unexpectedly changing speaker, location and even time frame.
In the first part of T.S. Eliot poem, subtitled “The Burial of the Dead” he writes,
"Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter."(Eliot, 1)
In this excerpt he takes on the persona of a girl, presumably Marie, and talks first about sitting around a lake, drinking coffee. The speaker then fades into her childhood, remembering with fondness how her cousin took her out sledding. She remembers being scared and then going down anyway. Then abruptly the speaker changes topics again and goes off on a different tangent. This is a prime example of how relativity has influenced T.S. Eliot in the way in which he is able to frame and write this poem. It departs from the common fluid, single event poetry and changes speakers and topics almost as if remembering a flash of a life, catching only pieces of each memory along the way.
Finally, Pablo Picasso is the archetype of relativity demonstrated in art. Relativity in Picasso is related to visual perspectives and the meaning of objects, deeper than just their physical structure. He painted many different styles, one of the most notable of which is Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, painted in 1907 during the African-influenced period of his life. In Les Demoiselles d’Avignon Picasso paints a picture of five prostitutes, one sitting and four standing. The two women on the right are wearing African-style masks. The woman sitting has her head turned toward us while her body is seated the opposite way and the woman on the far left has a face much darker than the rest of her painted skin tone. The spaces between the women also jut out in sharp pointed pieces rather than fade back behind the women as one would expect them to. Also the prostitutes themselves, though naked, are not depicted with sensuous curves and depth, but as flat plains. Each section or plain of this picture is in a different perspective than those that surround it. Some have shadows darkening the opposite sides and the faces of the women are asymmetrical. Picasso seems to have been trying to show the relativity of each perspective is different and paint all different viewpoints on one single image. And the fact that prostitutes are wearing tribal spiritual masks certainly conveys more of who the women are rather than just what they look like. This Picasso painting is the visual representation of what relativity is.
In Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art, relativity was seen in his argument that colors and shapes were only necessary when they were essential to the art, not simply to reproduce nature. Similarly, Stravinsky said in Poetics of Music that art is defined by its rules and no art can be void or structure, however the rules one artist uses may be completely different than that of another. In Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche explains that the values the master moralist holds are not objective truths that are always true. They are relative only to the time and place which the master is in and those values, though still important, are not eternal and not the same for all men all the time. T.S. Eliot in The Waste Land showed relativity by abruptly changing speakers, locations and times. And Picasso applied the idea of relativity to his painting in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon showing several perspectives and viewpoints all in a single image.
It has been necessary to understand the Theory of Relativity and how it has been applied to the many different styles of literature, art and music that came about in the early twentieth century. That idea alone has completely reshaped art, music and literature and had a profound impact upon how artists, authors and musicians create and convey their works of art.
Works Cited
Elliot, T. S. “The Waste Land.” Wikipedia. 10 June 2007. <http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Waste_Land>.
Kandinsky, Wassily. “Concerning the Spiritual in Art.” Classics of Western Thought, The Twentieth Century, Volume IV. Ed. Donald S. Gochberg. Belmont: Thomson Learning, 2003. 533-37.
Read the Full Text of Concerning the Spiritual in Art
Nietzsche, Friedrich. “Beyond Good and Evil.” Malaspina University-College. 10 June 2007. <http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/beyondgoodandevil1.htm>.
Picasso, Pablo. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. 1907. Museum of Modern Art, New York. 10 June 2007. <http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=79766&>
Stravinsky, Igor. “Poetics of Music.” Classics of Western Thought, The Twentieth Century, Volume IV. Ed. Donald S. Gochberg. Belmont: Thomson Learning, 2003. 538-47.
The Demands of Logic
May 3, 2007
The King James Version of the Bible is the perfectly preserved and inspired Word of God. Though skeptics roar against this fact, and hurl their fiery darts of criticism, the truth remains: this is the one and only Bible for English speaking people.
Have you ever heard the argument that the King James Version is too hard to be understood or that all the “thee’s” and “thou’s” are just too archaic? Critics of the Bible come up with many different arguments to try to somehow justify their preconceived ideas. For, you see, if there is a Bible, then there must be a God, and if there is a God, then that means we are accountable to that God. We then are responsible to find out Who that God is and what He wants us to do. However, these “competent scholars” know much more than God and therefore have no need of a Bible unless they themselves write it to their own liking. The Bible that convicts them of their sin must go. No Bible equals no God.
Did you know, however, that the English of the King James Version (KJV) is written only on a fifth grade reading level? Surely this is not too hard for “competent scholars” to read – is it? And the whole matter of “thee” and “thou” really isn’t that hard to figure out. “Thee” means “you” and “thou” means “you”. Nevertheless, the matter goes deeper than these petty surface arguments. The real argument is not about the actual words used. The controversy lies in the message.
Why are there no critics saying we need new versions of Shakespeare in the modern vernacular? His work has many of the same archaic words and yet he is lauded as a sheer genius. It is the very archaic language that many English scholars find so intriguing.
Dr. Robert O’Briant states, “The reason Biblical English seems so different is because it is different. The English of the Bible has never been spoken in any society at any time. Just look at its contemporaries in the field of literature, Shakespeare for example. Was his language the same as the language of the KJB 1611? I trow not! The English of the Bible is Biblical English. The translators were not only master of the original languages but also masters of excellent English. God had allowed our language to reach its peak in clarity and conciseness and brought together men who had completely mastered it to bring about a book that so clearly expressed His words that it has been the envy of critics for almost 400 years. There is not one word in the Bible that cannot be defined by a good English dictionary.”[i]
It is not that these men cannot understand, but rather that they don’t want to understand. These “scholars” make their own bible so they may feel justified in living the way that they want.
It is absolutely vital to the church that we have the very words of God. The words in the original text (commonly known as autographs) were not just the thoughts of God, but they were His very words. If God wrote the Bible perfectly in the originals, yet we cannot have those same words in a volume of that book today, then it would seem that God wasted His time in inspiring them in the first place.[ii]
Is God not able to give to us the very words that He wants us to have? Is a miracle too hard for the God of miracles? Was creation too hard for God? Was the virgin birth too hard for God? Was the collection of the 66 books of the Bible written over a period of 1,700 years too hard for God? Was overcoming the human nature of the sinful writers too hard for God? Then is preserving the words those writers penned too hard for God? Inspiration would seem far harder to believe than preservation.
Wilbur Pickering put it well when he said, “If the scriptures have not been preserved then the doctrine of inspiration is purely an academic matter with no relevance today. If we do not have the inspired words, or do not know precisely which they be, then the doctrine of inspiration is inapplicable.”[iii]
The question would then naturally arise, “On which translation does God have his hand, and which of the over 200 English translations are we to choose?” This should be a fairly simple question since all we have to do is find the one that contains every word of God. After all, God promised that He would preserve every word (Matthew 4:4, Psalm 12:6-7, Matthew 5:18). All we have to do is find out what the originals say.
Unfortunately, the originals don’t exist anywhere today, nor have they for a very long time. Scribes were known to destroy old worn out manuscripts (MSS) after they had copied them. (Apparently the early church valued the words of the originals more than the originals themselves!) In fact the original of Genesis has never even touched the original of Revelation, or the original of book of Psalms for that matter. All the original autographs of the Bible have never been compiled together in one book. To say that God’s perfect Word is only in the originals is to say God’s complete revelation to man has never existed anywhere at anytime.
How then are we to find the very Words of God? Well, we can look at history. Dr. Gipp cites three groups of “hard” evidence available today.
First there are copies. Since there are no originals, every record of Scripture will be a copy. Copies are divided into four groups: Miniscules, Majuscules (or Unicals), Lectionaries, and Papyrus fragment.
The second group of Biblical witnesses is the ancient versions. God chose to write the New Testament in Greek, but he did not choose to keep it in Greek only. The early Greek MSS were translated into other languages in order that the true Word of God could be put into the hands of the people in other lands. The Armenian version is referred to as the “Queen of Versions” because of its unusually high number of extant copies (1,244). This is especially significant when considering that the translation, made in 400 A.D., matches the readings in the King James Bible.[iv]
The third group is the early church fathers. These are the men who led the Christians in the first few centuries after the New Testament was completed. We have record of their early sermons, books, and commentaries. They are able to provide us with much information on disputed passages. Many have seen the original autographs.
Dr. Grady adds, “To illustrate the contributing value of the church fathers, the writings of Tettullian, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Origen, and Clement of Alexandria have supplied us with 30,147 Scripture citings alone. When we consider that the great majority of their quotations agree with the Textus Receptus (the text from which the King James Bible was taken) their worth is even more appreciated. However, when it is further discovered that all five men died anywhere between 20-150 years before Aleph and Codex B (the two supposedly “oldest and best” MSS from which all modern versions are taken) were copied, the readings of the King James Bible are established beyond question.”[v]
These three groups combined give us in excess of 5,250 witnesses. About 4,489 of these are Greek MSS.[vi] With this many witnesses it should not be very hard to find the Greek text of the original New Testament autographs. Upon examining these witnesses, it is soon seen that all of them fall into two basic groups, or “texts”. We also find that these two texts consistently disagree with each other concerning the major doctrines fundamental to the Christian faith. These doctrines include the virgin birth of Christ, the blood atonement, Christ’s second coming, the Trinity, and the deity of Christ.
The first of these two groups is the Majority Text (having gotten its name because the majority of the witnesses fall into this category). This text is found to uphold the major fundamental doctrines which the majority of the historic Christian church has supported.
This text culminates in the Textus Receptus or “Received Text”. It is this text which is the basis for the King James Bible.
Dr Grady points out, “Once again, the outstanding feature of the Received Text is its high percentage of agreement among so many thousands of independent witnesses. This agreement is often placed at 90 percent; in other words, 90 percent of all existing manuscripts agree with one another so miraculously that they are able to form their own unique text. In contradiction to such unity, the remaining 10 percent comprises a selection of manuscripts that will both agree with the majority text in many particulars while disagreeing wildly in others. Again, let it be stated that many of these variant readings are also unique to the individual manuscript containing it; where the 10 percent disagree from the majority, these departures also disagree with each other!”[vii]
The second of these two groups we will look at is the Minority Text. This text is found to be untrue concerning the major fundamental doctrines of Christianity. This is also the text used in every translation of the Bible since the Revised Version of 1881.
It is said of the Minority Text (or Wescott and Hort Text), “Its two outstanding trademarks in history are that orthodox Christianity has never used it and that the Roman Catholic Church has militantly (or “bloodily”) supported it.”[viii]
Another piece of this puzzle may be added when we consider the translators of each work. Almost immediately after James I became the king of England, one thousand ministers sent a petition termed the Millenary Petition. The purpose of this petition was to hold a conference to discuss the many alleged abuses in the national church. The Hampton Court Conference was arranged and then held on January 14, 16, and 18 in 1604. A new translation of the Bible was not on the agenda of the king, but it was an indirect result.
James was quoted as saying, “I wish some special pains were taken for a uniform translation which should be done by the best learned men in both Universities, then reviewed by the Bishops, Presented to the Privy Counsel, lastly ratified by Royal authority, to be read in the whole Church, and none other.”
So according to the king’s desire this resolution was made, “That a translation be made of the whole Bible, as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and Greek; and this to be set out and printed, without any marginal notes, and only to be used in all churches of England on time of divine service.” Six months after this proclamation was made the king the appointed 54 of the most learned men he could find to make up the six translation companies that would take on this task. Two of the companies would be at Oxford, two at Cambridge, and two at Westminster. At the time the translation was begun in 1607, only forty-seven men remained. Some had resigned because the issue was too controversial, and a few had died.[ix]
Dr. Grady writes, “The men on the translation committee of the King James Bible were, without dispute, the most learned men of their day and vastly qualified for the job which they undertook. They were overall both academically qualified by their cumulative knowledge and spiritually qualified by their exemplary lives. Among their company was men who, academically, took a months vacation and used the time to learn and master an entirely a foreign language; wrote a Persian dictionary; invented a specialized mathematical ruler; one was an architect; mastered oriental languages; publicly debated in Greek; tutored Queen Elizabeth in Greek and mathematics; and of one it was said, ‘Hebrew he had at his fingers end’.”[x]
These men include men like John Bois, who when he was only five years old, was taught to read Hebrew by his father. By the time he was six, he could not only write the same, but in a fair and elegant manner. At fifteen he was renowned for corresponding with his college superiors in Greek. He was well respected, and renowned for his devoured sixty grammars. He studied on his feet and rested only on his knees.
Another of the translators, Lancelot Andrews, was conversant in 15 languages! Another, Miles Smith, was known as “a very walking library”. Many of these men entered Oxford and Cambridge between the ages of 14-17. Of the forty-seven men thirty-six had their Doctorate in Divinity.
John Spencer had been on the Greek faculty at Corpus Christi College since 19 years of age. John Rainolds was known as “a living library, a third university,” and also as the “most prodigiously seen in all kinds of learning; most excellent in all tongues.”
It should also be noted that these men were not just dry theologians but also accomplished preachers and balanced Christians. They were well respected by the people of their day. Richard Brett was proficient in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic, and several Ethiopian tongues, but mostly known as a faithful friend, a good neighbor, and a diligent preacher.[xi]
In contrast if we look at the lives of the translators of almost all of the modern translations, the exact opposite is true. Not only are they not as well educated or naturally as gifted but the very testimony of their Christian lives is witness to the fact that the Word of God has little or not impact on them. The principles they stand for do not line up with traditional Christian faith. They simply do not live up to the high standards set by this group of 47 scholarly men.
It is plain to see the effects of the two “sides” of Biblical texts. History is the greatest witness of all. God uses the archaic language of the King James Bible to convey His precise meaning and most definitely blessed all those who take Him at His word. This is not only evident by the exemplary lives of the translators (which the translators of all modern versions lack) but also by the test of time. Although it took only seven years to complete, for almost four hundred years it has shined above all other books and any attempts to “improve” it!
[i] Robert O’Briant, Common Sense in the Midst of Conflict, (Universal Publishing Inc., Iron Station, 2000), p. 51
[ii] Samuel C. Gipp, An Understandable History of the Bible, (Bible Believers Baptist Bookstore, Macedonia, 1997) p. 21
[iii] David Fuller, Which Bible?, (Grand Rapids International Press, Grand Rapids, 1973), p. 269
[iv] William P. Grady, Final Authority, (Grady Publications, Schererville, 1993), p. 35
[v] Grady, p. 36
[vi] Gipp, p. 61-64
[vii] Grady, p. 28
[viii] Gipp, p. 69
[ix] O’Briant, p. 96-103
[x] Grady, p. 156
[xi] Grady, p. 157
Women in the Life and Works of Edgar Allen Poe
April 19, 2007
Most men begin in the closest of all relationships with women – the strong mother and son bond. However, with Edgar Allan Poe such is not the case. His mother was the first of many women who had a profound impact on Edgar’s poems and short stories. Her impact however, was not of what she did, but rather what she did not do.
In order to properly address the subject matter at hand, one must delve into the intriguing life of Mr. Poe. Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809 of David Poe and Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins. David Poe drank heavily (a trait which we later see in both Edgar and his older brother William Henry) and eventually abandoned his wife. With the demands of her acting career and the stress of trying to support three young children (the oldest of which was three) she had little time to be a proper mother. Then in October of 1811 she became very sick with tuberculosis and by December 10th she had died at only the age of only 24.
The effect on Edgar of never having known the affection of his parents is described in an 1835 letter to Beverley Tucker, who mentioned to him in a previous letter that she had known Poe’s mother. Poe replied, “In speaking of my mother you have touched a string to which my heart fully responds. To have known her is to be the object of great interest in my eyes. I myself never knew her — and never knew the affection of a father. Both died . . . within a few weeks of each other. I have many occasional dealings with adversity — but the want of parental affection has been the heaviest of my trials”. (Ostrom, 78-79) Here Poe clearly expresses the pain in his soul for his persistent need of female attention and love. It is a theme we see recurring not only in his life but also in many of his literary works.p>
Edgar was taken in, but not adopted by, John and Francis Allan who spoiled him terribly. Francis, the second major woman in Poe’s life, provided for all his material needs but was seldom available to him, partly because Poe was off at various boarding schools, and partly due to the fact that, like his natural mother, Francis too was sick with various ailments. Her absence and diminishing health only added to the grimness of young Edgar’s demeanor.
During this period Edgar is known to have been attracted to Elmira Royster. She became engaged to him, but her father had intercepted Edgar’s letters to her while he attended the university. Not knowing of Edgar’s letters until later, she married another man. (Quinn, 91). She became yet another “lost love” on Edgar’s growing list.
The first important female friend that Poe had (except for his foster-mother, Frances Allan) was Mrs. Jane Stith Stanard (whom he called Helen), the mother of his friend and classmate, Robert Stanard. Mrs. Stanard, who was in her thirties, always lent a kind and sympathetic ear to the 14 year old Edgar. He visited her home frequently and several years later Mrs. Maria Clemm told Mrs. Helen Whitman, in a letter in March 1859, that “when Eddie was unhappy at home” — as she said was often the case — “he went to [Mrs. Stanard] for sympathy, and she always consoled and comforted him . . .” (Quinn, 86).
However, Mrs. Stanard, in keeping with the building trend of the women in his life, was neither in good physical nor mental health, and in the spring of 1824 she suddenly became very sick. On April 28th, with her mind totally deranged, she died. Her death only added to Poe’s already mounting hardship and grief. It was because of the beauty of Mrs. Stanard and his boyhood love for her that her wrote the poem, To Helen, as he explained in a letter to Mrs. Helen Whitman, in October of 1848. Poe said that he wrote this poem in his “passionate boyhood, to the first, purely ideal love of my soul — to the Helen Stanard of whom I told you” (Mabbott, 164).
In 1831 Poe moved to New York and while there lived with his widowed aunt, Maria Clumm, along with her old paralyzed mother and her two children. Then by 1836 he had married his cousin, the daughter of Maria Clumm, Virginia. She was only a few days shy of being 14 years old. Poe most likely had a more spiritual connection to Virginia rather than a physical one at this stage of their relationship. He dearly loved Virginia, and she too "lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by [him]". (Poe in Annabel Lee, 1524)
It was on January 30th, 1847, when Virginia was only 25 that,
"A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher.
In this kingdom by the sea." (Poe in Annabel Lee, 1524)
Edgar fell apart; for it was she, like Roderick Usher’s Madeline, which represented his only reason for living. It was in lament of her death that he surely penned Annabel Lee. This poem told of their love, in which nothing could “dissever [his] soul from the soul, Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.” (Poe in Annabel Lee, 1524). Poe never recovered from her young and untimely death, a seemingly recurring macabre event in his life. However, this would not be that last time.
In Poe’s Eleonora, Maria Clumm, Virginia and Edgar are all no doubt the inspiration for the main characters of this allegorical story. In it the narrator, Pryos, tells of “she whom I loved in my youth, . . . the sole daughter of the only sister of my mother long departed. Eleonora was the name of my cousin. We had always dwelled together beneath a tropical sun, in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass”. (Mabbott, 636) Here again we see Poe using the women dear to him in his life to mold his stories.
In the three years after Virginia’s death, Poe had several other romantic involvements, most notably one with Sarah Helen Whitman. She was also a poet, and after developing a fascination with his work she wrote a poem about him entitled, To Edgar Allan Poe. As a response to this, Poe wrote his second To Helen poem which focused on the divine light of Helen’s eyes. Shortly thereafter in September of 1848 he asked her to marry him. Before that marriage could take place however, several drunken bouts, and Poe’s poor reputation changed her mind.
One cannot help being struck by the self-destructive tendencies of Poe. Contradictions are everywhere. For example, he attempted suicide by ingesting opium while courting the lady he claimed to love. He accused his enemies of slandering him, and then confirmed their stories by continuing to drink heavily. Finally, he had become so paranoid that on a stopover in Philadelphia, he told a friend that two men on the train were trying to kill him. (Quinn, 616)
Poe likely could have married Elmira Royster – as he could have also married Ms. Whitman – but instead, in his traditional self destructive pattern, (and evidenced by almost every event of his life) he set a course that would take him back – back to the sorrow and the lost love that he started with. Without a doubt many critics would agree that Poe’s inspiration (or necessity) to write came from his life’s grim experiences. However, I contend that his many poems and short stories were a direct response to, and result of, the many women, and their complementary sorrows, that dominated his life.
The poem To One In Paradise was addressed to Poe’s favorite topic, that of lost love. In it he seems to prophetically sum up his now famous life,
"Thou wast that all to me, love,
For which my soul did pine—
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine, …"
However, for Poe it became a "dream too bright to last" …
"For alas! alas! with me
The light of Life is o’er!"
Works Cited
Baym, Nina. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2003.
Mabbott, Thomas Oliver. Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1978.
Ostrom, John Ward. The Letters of Edgar Allan Poe, 2 vols, New York: Gordian Press Inc., 1966.
Quinn, A. Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
Identity Theft
January 29, 2007
Every minute, in the United States, 19 more people become the victims of identity theft. That means that every year about 10 million people have their identity stolen.[i] Identity theft is the number one concern of all consumer who contact the Federal Trade Commission. According the U.S. Department of Justice Statistics, identity theft is now passing drug trafficking as the number one crime in the nation.[ii] Clearly identity theft is a major concern of American consumers, and their concern is not unfounded. In fact, 49% of consumers feel that they do not know how to adequately protect themselves from this crime.[iii]
What exactly is identity theft? Identity theft can be described as using someone else’s personal information such as social security numbers, names, address, or user names and passwords to establish or change financial accounts, or to conceal their own identity for criminal activities.
The main reason a thief seeks to steal a persons identity is for financial fraud. This is usually accomplished by a thief establishing a bank or credit card account under the victims name, running up purchases to the credit limit, and then leaving the bill unpaid. The bank or credit institution then seeks payment from the unknowing victim, whose identity was used to start a fraudulent account. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, a victim spends an average of over 600 hours and $1,400.00 of out of pocket expenses in an effort to restore their credit.[iv]
The second reason why a thief may steal one’s identity is to take on the victim’s identity to commit a crime, cross a country’s border, get special permits, or to hide one’s own identity from authorities. These include activities like, computer and cyber crimes, organized crime, drug trafficking, alien smuggling, money laundering and even terrorism. A related reason why identity theft has become so common and is on the rise is because only one out of every 700 criminals will be caught and prosecuted for their crime.[v]
Several methods are employed by criminals in identity theft. It may be from a gas station or restraint receipt that you accidentally forgot or threw away without destroying it. Although less common now than a few years ago some companies still print your full credit card number and name on the receipt. With that information a criminal can easily place an order over the phone or online. Even websites that seek to make transactions secure by asking for the card holder’s address or phone number, can easily be bypassed if the criminal simply looks up the victim’s address and phone number in the phone book or through and online directory. Your credit card can be "skimmed", meaning a device is placed on the outside of the legitimate card reader to copy your personal information as you use your card in an ATM or gas station pump. Personal information can also be memorized or copied by waiters or sales clerks, taken directly from your mailbox, and they could even be taken from the files and records of your employer, landlord, hospital, or financial lender.
One of the more common methods as of late is to con you into giving the criminal your person information yourself. This can be through spoof emails - emails which appear to be from a legitimate company or service, and are often built on the premise of possible errors with your account, which requires one to log onto a carbon copy of the site with which you are familiar – or through fishing sites which unknowingly redirect you to a “carbon copy” re-login page, causing you to think you simply need to re-login to your financial lender’s website. In reality you have just give the thief all the information he could possibly want by looking at the information registered with that institution. Yet another way a thief may use your computer to steal your personal information is to exploit security holes in any software that you may have on your computer. The thief may install software that logs every keystroke that you make or looks through the files stored on your computer for any useful information. While these may seem like high-tech hacking tactics in reality they are very easily learned skills that can be found abundantly on the internet and use free downloadable programs. Any tech-savy teen with a little time on their hands is more than capable of using the aforementioned methods.
Some thieves even take the trash of likely targets, which they then sift through look for discarded pre-approved credit cards or any other information that they may use to piece together the victim’s personal information.
Laws like the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 and The Fair Credit Reporting Act were enacted to help protect consumer’s identities. However, the ultimate responsibility (and also the most effective defense) lie with the owner of the identity, you. The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act requires a national system of fraud detection and alerts, and also holds credit agencies responsible to identify patterns of fraud. The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires each of the nationwide consumer reporting companies such as, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, to provide an individual with a free copy of their credit report, at their request, once every 12 months or if they believe they have been the victim of fraud. This report can be obtained from http://www.annualcreditreport.com.
To prevent this epidemic problem from happening to you, you must take a proactive approach. Simply telling yourself that it won’t happen to you will not work. Each individual must take the necessary steps to protect their own sensitive personal information. These steps include:
- Monitoring your back and credit card statements and checking your credit report periodically for unauthorized accounts.
- Never give out your Social Security number unless you absolutely have to.
- Do not put anything but the required name and address on your checks and keep an eye on your checkbook while it is laying out and while you are writing a check. Someone can easily write down or memorize your address and account number in the time it takes to write a check. Also guard your deposit slips. Not only do they often have your name, address and account number printed on them, but they can also be used to withdraw money from your account. A thief must simply write a bad check, deposit it into your account and use the “less cash received” line to withdraw your money.
- Don’t carry your Social Security card or passport in your wallet or purse, and some experts suggest that you photocopy everything that you do carry in your wallet or purse to make recovery and canceling easier.
- Never give out personal information over the phone if you did not initiate the call and remember that a financial company will never ask you to email them your account information. If you do need to log in to their services, in response to an email, do not click the links in the email but rather type the address into your web browsers address bar.
- You should have your name and address removed from mailing lists by going to the Mail Preference Service (https://www.dmaconsumers.org/cgi/offmailing) and also remove your name from “pre-approved” credit offers by going to https://www.optoutprescreen.com.
- Be sure to shred – not just tear in half, but shred by cross cut – any credit offers or mail with personal information that you do receive before throwing it away.
- If you are ever denied credit, find out why. By law if you are denied credit the company must send you a credit report containing why you were denied.
- React quickly if you suspect that your identity has been stolen, or you see charges on your financial statements that you did not make.
In regard to computer related security there are several easy thing that you can do to protect yourself online.
- One of the simplest things you can do to protect your personal information is to use a secure password (one that is 8-13 characters long and includes a combination of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers and symbols) and change that password every 60 days or so.
- Be sure your computer software, especially web browsers, are up-to-date by going to http://update.microsoft.com/ or the equivalent website for your software vendor.
- Look for digital security certificates, like VeriSign, when entering sensitive information.
- Never give out personal information unless you know who you are dealing with.
By taking a few simple steps to ensure your personal information is protect, you can save your self a great deal of time, effort and money by preventing identity theft from ever happening to you in the first place. As out lives become more and more involved with online registrations, website purchasing, and the ease with which digital data may be transferred or intercepted, it is more and more important to ensure that each individual is doing everything possible to protect their family, their money and their property by being aware of current security precautions.
[ii] [ii] http://www.baylor.edu; March 29, 2006, Jonathan Lopez
[iv] Ciampa, Mark. 2005. Security + Guide to Network Security Fundamentals. Thomson Course Technology, Canada.
[v] Ibid.
Terri Schiavo Ethics
April 25, 2005
Should the feeding tube that had been keeping Terri Schiavo alive for the last fifteen years been removed? I do not think so. Michael Schiavo was fighting for the right to let Terri die, however she had no terminal disease and would only die if not fed and given water, just as you and I would.
First of all, Terri was in a comatose state. A state that, although it is rare, it is possible to recover from. Many people have awoken from comas against all odds and a few people have awoken after being in a coma for many years. Terri was not being a burden to anybody and her parents, brother and sister were more than willing to take the time and effort to take care of all of Terri’s needs. Terri’s parents were also financially capable of paying for all of Terri’s medical needs and there were also a few funds set up for her care that had thousands of dollars in them devoted directly for her. In fact the only legitimate reason that anyone would want Terri to die would be her husband, Michael who stood to gain a life insurance claim from her. Other than that she was only a benefit to keep alive. Just her being there and having the chance to recover, however small a chance it may have been, was a comfort to Terri’s parents.
Second, the only thing that Terri needed medically was a feeding tube for food and hydration – just as some people who are severely retarded or some of the elderly in nursing homes need. However, it is clearly wrong to remove the feeding tubes of these people, in a similar condition. Food and water are not medical treatment, if you keep food and water from anyone for a long period of time they will die. Just because the delivery system of the food is different does not make that much of a difference in the fact that it is needed by all living people. Babies are not able to feed themselves either, but if you stopped feeding a baby and it was allowed to die you would quickly be put into jail. In fact, if you quit feeding your dog for several days – even if it doesn’t die you are very likely to receive several years in jail. There is no real difference in feeding through a tube than a liquid diet or feeding babies. People with a broken jaw must be fed through a tube also, but it is a crime to remove their feeding tube. The fact that Terri is unconscious will surely be raised on this point, but there are many mentally handicapped people who also do not have full consciousness or mental capabilities and must be fed through a feeding tube. But if their tube was removed you would go to jail for murder. This seems to be a very inconsistent argument.
Third, it was argued that the feeding tube should be removed because Terri was suffering in her current state and would not want to live that way. If that in fact was true, and Terri was in a comatose state that could not be recovered from, then she was in fact not suffering at all and would not in the future at any time. In a coma, the part of the brain that produces feeling and consciousness is not functioning properly and thus the individual is in a coma. Therefore, in a coma a person feels nothing and could not be suffering, making this argument invalid. It was not known whether she would want to live or not.
However, if you look at the facts, a more accurate picture of this can be seen. Her parents thought Terri would want the chance to recover and would want to receive any and all treatment that would be necessary to keep her alive. They stood to gain nothing if they were right and Terri was kept on the feeding tube. In fact, they only added more responsibility upon their own shoulders. Michael Schiavo, on the other hand, believed that Terri would not want to live in a comatose state and after being given a reasonable time of a few days or weeks with no improvement would want to be killed (not passively euthanized because there is no underlying condition that would take her life, but actively killed by starvation, as in any other case of starvation). He stood to gain money from life insurance and would no longer be involved in the legal issues and medical decisions for Terri. Motives seem to be a factor in this case.
Many opponents of this case said that Terri’s comatose state had gone beyond recovery and in fact to a place where the brain had started to deteriorate away. This evidence was still being debated however, as the technology for this kind of imaging is still not perfect. It was unclear exactly was the state of Terri’s brain was.
Another argument against this case is that medical treatment should be stopped and Terri should be allowed to die because her life was no longer worth living. There was no medical procedure being done however to sustain Terri’s life and no artificial means of life support. The only thing that kept Terri alive is the very thing that keeps you and I alive – food and water.
The last main argument made against this case is that Terri was suffering in her comatose state and should not continue to be made to suffer. This issue has already been addressed and it seems to be clear that either way, she was not suffering.
The arguments in this case seem to be very clear. To cease feeding Terri is just as wrong as to stop feeding anyone else. This case has gone beyond decided whether Terri should die, and into whether the courts have the right to decide who lives and who does not. All human life is precious and no one has the right to take the life of anyone else no matter what state they may consider them to be in. If the court can decide to stop feeding Terri, can they not also decide that you should not be fed either? I vehemently say the court has no such right.
