Agee’s writing imparts a dignity not found in the photos taken by Walker in a near-apology. His writing is necessarily by nature a reaction to Walker’s photographs, as the photos represent the initial image one encounters upon meeting these families and individuals. Agee’s prose, then, supplements an exalted aura surrounding these people, functioning similarly to the *footnotes in Keene’s much more intimate description of Carmen. After all, the humanization of these subjects — ironically, often via his descriptions of them as angry and full of hatred given their wretched situations — cannot be communicated in the snapshots taken by Walker. The photos alone impart the sense of dreadful poverty and ramshackle disarray, displaying families for which the holes in their clothing are outnumbered only by their children, whom the viewers come to pity. None of the subjects are smiling — which would at least be a semblance of movement, contraction — imparting a further sense of suffocating stasis. Agee’s writing, however, reshapes the reader’s understanding of the subjects, imparting context to their situations — the sick steed, for example — redefining the depiction of the families from simply wretched (or even deserving of blame, for the seeming state of the children) to one of compassion and regret at the lot they’ve been served.  Agee subtly emphasizes the limited scope of the camera lens in his encounter with the African-American couple walking to church. He comments that he “had no doubt Walker would do what he wanted ‘whether he had permission or not, but I wanted to be on hand,” chasing after the couple and giving them quite a fright in the process. In his commentary on Walker’s disregard, Agee simultaneously comments on the role of photography — which unflinchingly depicts the surface value without requesting permission in the form of considerate contextual background or sympathetic retakes. However, Agee is unsparing in his depiction of himself as an utterly ignorant white man, given his lack of foresight in chasing after the couple and scaring them horribly. The role of a writer, he communicates, is not innocent either — although perhaps more well-mannered in its necessary communication with the subjects, it requires a surgical invasiveness that leaves its subjects marred in different ways than does photography. 

Keene fills the silence in the archive surrounding enslaved women with the crafting of numerous perspectives around the same story. He shifts the telling of the story from that of third person, to the written journal entries of Carmel, to finally the first-person perspective of Carmel herself. The story begins with a rather cut-and-dry telling of the history of Carmel’s first residence, where she serves as a slave girl treated in various characteristic ways: expected to taste the food she cooked first, whipped for some barely remembered transgression, hardly noticed as a person. All of this reads as a rendition of “official history,” but considering it is the reader’s first exposure to the chapter matter, is not so overtly violent. In the description of her wall drawings, Carmel plays a passive role, as if she is whooshed away by some explainable artistic impulse — similarly, subtly violent in its narrative distance. Her relationships with Eugenie and fellow slave “PH” are especially prominent in her journal entries, which notably lack grammar and punctuation, given her lack of formal schooling. Keene depicts her entries as blunt yet endearing in the specific way of a young woman in the world, such as when Carmel notes every day that Eugenie doesn’t speak to her, and the number of rosaries she does every day. The concrete moments of her days are noted in this perspective. We come to know much about what goes on in her life, but not so much of what transpires in her mind. Finally, Keene fills the silence with interiority into Carmel’s thoughts, and the story comes alive. The shift from her sometimes-barely comprehensible journal entries to the melodic, intricate channel into her mind nearly scolds the reader for their limited humanization of Carmel via the earlier perspectives — made most prominent by the realization that Carmel actually is in touch with these fantastical elements which allow her to control the actions of others and predict/manifest the future. In such a way, the reader is slowly lulled into a closeness with Carmel’s character, and the unique process of transition recognizes Keene’s rendition particularly successful at filling the silence in the archive without requiring the continuation of “official history.” 

Definition: Hysteria

Hippocrates (5th century BC) is the first to use the term hysteria. Indeed he also believes that the cause of this disease lies in the movement of the uterus (“hysteron”) [2–4]. The Greek physician provides a good description of hysteria, which is clearly distinguished from epilepsy. He emphasizes the difference between the compulsive movements of epilepsy, caused by a disorder of the brain, and those of hysteria due to the abnormal movements of the uterus in the body. Then, he resumes the idea of a restless and migratory uterus and identifies the cause of the indisposition as poisonous stagnant humors which, due to an inadequate sexual life, have never been expelled. He asserts that a woman’s body is physiologically cold and wet and hence prone to putrefaction of the humors (as opposed to the dry and warm male body). For this reason, the uterus is prone to get sick, especially if it is deprived of the benefits arising from sex and procreation, which, widening a woman’s canals, promote the cleansing of the body. And he goes further; especially in virgins, widows, single, or sterile women, this “bad” uterus – since it is not satisfied – not only produces toxic fumes but also takes to wandering around the body, causing various kinds of disorders such as anxiety, sense of suffocation, tremors, sometimes even convulsions and paralysis. For this reason, he suggests that even widows and unmarried women should get married and live a satisfactory sexual life within the bounds of marriage [2–4].

Source: Tasca, Cecilia, et al. “Women and Hysteria in the History of Mental Health.” Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health : CP & EMH, Bentham Open, 2012, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3480686/.

Creative Exercise:

It all started the day after Mary Ann broke up with me. It felt mutual, at the time. But later I realized I had been dumped. Dumped at 14 — precocious! The next morning I woke up and nothing was the same. You see, I finally understood — girls were not all like I had been misled to believe. They were not always sweet, and laughing, and pretty, nor were they badass and seductive and calculating, like Shego. Most of the time, they’re mainly, well, hysterical. Case in point — Mary Ann couldn’t stop sniffling when she told me our chakras did not align, while we sat on the bleachers by the school’s tennis courts. The whole time she had her hands clasped her in front of her stomach, as if she was holding herself together, holding something in. I think that’s when I got my first clue. When we stood up to leave — me first and then her, because I was ready to move on — I saw it: her uterus, thumping like a rabid animal, just below the elastic band of her black gym shorts. When she saw me looking, she shifted her hands quickly to hide it. By the expression on her face, I knew that she knew that I knew — she let the crazy in her eyes show, for the first time, right then. A foul smell percolated in the air, a smell that I realized had been there all along, barely masked by her potent feminine wiles. She scuttled away, certainly driven by the erratic commands of that rogue organ, and started going around calling me all sorts of snide names — certainly, in an attempt to discredit me, for I knew her secret. The secret kept by all of them. Her reconnaissance efforts were in vain, however, because there was nothing that could be done at that point. The next day, I glimpsed the savage tyranny of the uteruses everywhere, shifting into view like chinks in armor — whenever the females laughed, through which you can also catch a hint of madness — but especially when they preened, for that is when they think they are being the most careful, the most discreet, and foolishly let the facade flicker. I thought long about how I should approach the matter. After all, it was no coincidence that I of all people had been shown. It was a power that came with great responsibility. It wasn’t until a week later, when we were well into the last month of ninth grade, that I knew what I had to do.

“Hey!” 

“Just seeing what you guys are laughing at,” she said, kissing Adam’s cheek while holding his phone behind her back. “I can be a bro!” 

“No, seriously, Casey — ” He grabbed at the phone, nearly falling out of the armchair. His friend, she was pretty sure his name was Tim, giggled from beside the coffee table as he watched. She scooted back out of his reach, spinning around to read the screen. 

It was a meme of a woman, pointing accusingly into the vague distance. She had massive breasts that nearly fell out of her shirt. Above her contorted face read “25 percent of the women in this country are on medication for mental illness,” and beneath her breasts, “it means 75 percent are running around untreated!” 

Adam snatched the phone from her slack grip. “It’s just a joke.” Seeing her expression, he added, “Somebody sent it to Tim. We were laughing at how stupid it was.” 

She looked at Tim, who was now staring rather solemnly at the carpet. “Someone sent it to Tim. Through your phone.” 

Adam winced. “Yup.” 

“You were laughing at how stupid it was?” 

“Yes. Well, the idea of it.” As Adam stammered, Tim bobbed his head doggedly from behind. He continued, “The depiction. Like the general manic energy of — ”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” she said, quietly. Tim leaned in. “It’s not funny. I literally told you about my sister last weekend.” 

“Wait — what does that — you mean the Prozac?” 

“Dude.” Her gaze flickered to Tim, who was listening with reluctant obligation. “And it’s not just ‘the Prozac.’ I told you how long it took for me to convince my parents to let her go on meds.” 

“I know. I remember.” 

“And now you’re laughing at this, like it’s a joke. A sexist joke.” 

Tim inserted his pasty palm between her and Adam. “If I may,” he said, clearing his throat. 

“This isn’t your problem,” she said. How close were he and Adam? Adam didn’t mention his friends often, and Tim was one of the first she’d met since they’d started dating, just two weeks ago. She preferred his dog, Taco. “Could you please just let us have a minute?” 

“Sure, sure,” he responded, without retracting his hand. It looked awfully swattable, in that moment. “But if I could just say” — he cleared his throat — “doesn’t this prove the meme’s point?” He smiled without teeth. “I mean, it’s cool, like if you’re on your period right now. I would get that. And soz’, about your sister.” 

Nick Drnaso’s artistic style implicitly reproduces the orderliness of how news is meant to be. The structure of the panels is clean-cut and uniformly organized, either with congruently sized frames throughout the page, or a few larger panels surrounded by smaller ones, aligned in four by six grids. Outlines of characters and backgrounds are precisely filled with homogeneous blocks of color, with no shading or gradients present — alike how news is meant to represent the truth in a black-and-white manner with no grey areas. Even the illustration of the characters, whose facial expressions bear few details and rarely display overt emotion, engages the reader in an instinctual, emotional detachment from the setting. Nick Drnaso’s depiction of the characters is never overt in the responses it’s meant to elicit, despite evincing genuine empathy and consequently, biases — similar to how news channels are meant to present objective accounts and should not set out to sway viewers’ opinions, yet still manage to do so in other discreet ways. Calvin, the protagonist, is depicted as a nice, lonely guy who never emotes or opines on the surface level, though the reader can infer his true feelings. As the reader follows him around and the plot unfolds, they naturally assume that they have the most direct channel to Calvin’s interiority — therefore, when these purportedly cut-and-dry news outlets depict Calvin as “hostile,” or twist his words into intentions that the reader most likely did not assign, the reader is especially jarred. Would Drnaso’s discussion of news, “fake and non,” be as impactful if his stylistic presentation were more dramatic or sensational? 

Italo Calvino’s creative work “Mr. Palomar” is interesting in that he creates a character who values exactitude not specifically of language but more so in behavior and understanding, and in doing so becomes an utterly exhausting individual who, in his conquest for profundity, completely loses touch with reality. In this way Calvino both sharpens his description of exactitude while poking fun at those who apply it incorrectly. Mr. Palomar is fascinating in that his pretension is so patently obvious and he is utterly oblivious to it. His striving for exactitude is underscored by his continuous notion that his specific account of things, his accurate perception of them, is imperative on a universal scale. He must witness the moon, the wave, the breast — else how could they possibly go on? Mr. Palomar bears a seeming allegiance to something greater urging him to exactly identify a single wave. Calvino characterizes Mr. Palomar as a “nervous man who lives in a frenzied and congested world,” who “tends to reduce his relations with the outside world,” and “tries to keep his sensations under control as much as possible.” His life views are projected upon his observation of the water, as “the indentations in the brow of the wave must be considered.” Calvino pokes fun at the irony of the situation — effectively communicating that this is not the kind of exactitude he meant — by noting that “if it were not for [Mr. Palomar’s] impatience to reach a complete, definitive conclusion of his visual operation, looking for waves could be a very restful exercise for him.” Such misplaced exactitude is futile, Calvino conveys, as rather than perceiving “the true substance of the world beyond sensory and mental habits,” Mr. Palomar “feels a slight dizziness, but it goes no further than that.” 

In this exercise I used my voice as the object.

Original:

In California, home, the voice rings crisp and high, just like those around it. There is no fear because it is just the same. In Chicago, it wavers and trips over memories of snide men who have found it inauthentic and basic and utterly unbecoming! Every word of “that’s midwestern hospitality for you” sounds like that before and after it. With some time it has taken on a lower timbre, so as to resonate just barely; and at times it takes on a girlish lilt in the presence of unfamiliar company. Sometimes there is a deliberateness to it. It rises and it falls but holds steady, mellow, so as not to disturb the peace. It lulls like low tide, coming and going so softly that it’s often not heard, begetting a gentle and NOT, not, indignant reminder. It has steady momentum like a mare’s gait, so it is nice to hear, inoffensive to the poor ears that have been tragically grated by those with the outrageous audacity to be shrill. At times it cracks on the low notes, or when it strains valiantly to be quiet and soothing and calm and rational. Like a rickety, frail wagon bouncing along a freshly cobbled street, following the cracks are when the voice sounds loudest, striking a sharp juxtaposition to the moments of naked silence and unwitting intake of breath. When angry, the voice is hard and smooth, like brittle slabs chipped off the corner of a plastic block slowly launched into the watchful sky. Sometimes the voice is not in my mouth so much as it is clawing up out my throat, taking chunks of me with it in the words I must give, and in those moments it is not so much a sound of pitch or depth but a rather meaty thing of substance that you could just bite into. 

First revision:

In California, home, the voice rings thin and lofty, just like those around it. There is no fear because it is just the same. In Chicago, it wavers and trips over memories of staring men who have found it bogus and strained and frankly uncharming! Every word of “that’s midwestern hospitality for you” sounds like that which comes before and after it. With the passing of time it has taken on a richness, so as to resonate just enough, and at times adopts the healthful lilt of a metal spoon clinking glass, usually in the presence of promising company. Sometimes there is a deliberateness to it. It rises and it falls but holds firm, like an expensive pillow, so as not to disturb the peace. It lulls like low tide, coming and going so easily that it’s often not heard, begetting a pillowy and NOT, not, nettled reminder. It has sure momentum like a mare’s gait, so it is nice to hear, soothing like a gel to the red-blooded ears that have been badly grated by those with the ignoble audacity to be shrill. At times it cracks on the low notes, when it pines heroically to be quiet and soothing and calm and rational. Like a tottery wagon bouncing along a newly cobbled street, following the cracks are when the voice sounds deafening, striking an acute juxtaposition to the moments of bald silence and unwitting breathe. When angry, the voice is creamy yet unforgiving, like smooth brittle slabs chipped off the corner of an acrylic block, launched purposefully into the mute sky. Sometimes the voice is not in my mouth so much as it is clawing up out my throat, taking chunks of me with it in the words I must give, and in those moments it is not so much a sound of pitch or depth but a rather marrowy thing of substance that you could chew. 

Rewritten:

The voice is scary in how it changes with no control and gives everything away like a laugh, and in its laugh. When nervous, the voice is tense and saturated, like a new sponge filled with water. When it speaks, no matter of what, it seems to be recounting the drowning of a local. When my mind and body are elsewhere from each other and neither can seem to get a hold, the voice is full of air, and it seems the only things that could hold the words together are the rigid, printed outlines on a paper page. When I am full of hope the voice is nearly a hand mixed bowl of pancake batter, spilling over in delicious chunks that make sense only together, lovable in its rawness. When I care but the voice cannot, it spans the air between like rays of neon lights at a concert for dazed young people, nonchalant and smooth and garish. When I hurt, the voice creeps between my mouth and their eyes, ready to skitter at the slightest hint of coldness, testing the ice with a skinny croak before every noise.