Self-criticism. I Once Heard Cornel

¶ … Self-Criticism.

I once heard Cornel West say, "The unexamined life is not worth living." If I recall correctly, I heard him say that to Tavis Smiley on NPR. I searched on the Internet and found that the quote dates back to Socrates, and is a line (38a) from "The Apology." Well, regardless of its origins, it's a line that stuck in my head, a line -- one of those axioms -- I couldn't forget. And when I think of reasons to read literature, why one should crack open the pages of "In My Father's House" by Earnest J. Gaines or "Death of a Salesman," by Arthur Miller, I think of Cornel West saying in his enthusiastic and prophetic voice, "The unexamined life is not worth living." That is to say, literature is a way for one to examine one's life. Literature is a way for one to think critically about one's decisions in life. Literature is a way to grapple with the tough times one faces in life. I read literature because it's an exercise in self-criticism. I read literature because it makes life worth living. And the purpose of this essay is to examine the reasons for reading literature; both institutional reasons (i.e. As part of academia) and personal reasons (why I personally read it, which I've somewhat just described) and how the aforementioned works satisfy those reasons.

Both books are about the relationships between father's and sons. Both books end tragically with the untimely death of their main characters. Both books are sad and depression. To be perfectly honest, when I heard Arthur Miller used to date or was married to Marilyn Monroe I was expecting something like a daytime soap or a Lifetime television movie and not a serious play investigating the hardened ways of aging salesmen. And for me, that's what "Death of a Salesman" was about. A stubborn aging Salesman, who is so convicted in his ways, so fixated on commerce and capitalism, that when he finds out he is more "valuable" -- in a monetary sense, not in terms of human value -- dead than he is alive, he decides to kill himself.

For me, this is as sad as it gets, an unnecessary human sacrifice for monetary gain. But this is at the heart of what Arthur Miller was getting at when he wrote, "Death of a Salesman," this is the question he is asking one to consider, "what are the sacrifices one makes in pursuit of the almighty dollar?" And as the reader is aware by the end of the play, his obsession with money ends up costing Willy Loman his life.

What I take away personally from this play is that, simply, money isn't everything, that there is more to life than dollars and cents. And in my own life, going back to they way I think about things, and in an attempt to be more self-critical, I learned from reading this play that life is about balance and pursuing life across several dynamics, for example, relationships, family, friends, education, and not just one dynamic, i.e. money. For if money was the one dynamic I pursued and cared about, I'd probably end up like Willy Loman and his pathetic garden, "Nothing's planted. I don't have a thing in the ground."

In a classroom setting, reading "Death of a Salesman" has a similar effect. It forces the class to reflect upon their goals and ambitions in life. For example, many students attend college, not because they love academia or college life (although some do, I'm sure), they do so because they want to make as much money as they can possibly make during their short stay here on earth, and one way to do that is by attending college (I don't know the statistics offhand, but people who have a degree make something like 1/3rd more, on average, than people who don't have a degree). So, in a sense, everyone in this classroom is seeking financial prosperity, yet, hopefully, unlike Willy Loman, they have more seeds planted in the ground.

In turning to "In My Father's House" by Earnest J. Gaines, and sticking with the seed motif, one can safely say that one of the major themes "In My Father's House" is one reaps what he/she sows. What you do in life, good, bad, otherwise, comes back to haunt you. And the suicide of Robert X is an embodiment of that lesson.

In reading about this book, in preparation for this essay, I came across a conversation the author had with John Lowe concerning the tight narrative quality of the book, and I think in commenting about it, Gaines underscores one of the book's major themes:

WP: There's nothing wasted in that book. It's totally honest and almost foreordained from the beginning, from the first page.

Gaines: A great man falls, and what he's going to do when he gets up. He feels that even God had failed him. He could not even please God any more (Lowe 184).

This theme, or question rather, of how does one deal with failure is an important one, on the individual level as well as on the group level. How does one deal with personal failure? How does a team, a group, deal with failure? Does one take the easy way out (i.e. suicide)? Does the group give up its collective goal? These questions are integral to the process of self-examination, and that's what Gaines is asking the reader to consider (among other things, racial tensions, civil rights, the power of God, etc.)

So in briefly looking at these two literary works, one can see how they impact readers individually and as a collective.

With that said, I'd now like to discuss how reading literature specifically aligns with the rubrics set forth by universities and colleges. In short, what do colleges want their students to achieve by reading literature? Well, I am of the opinion that academia, in particular those factions who push for a "liberal arts" education, want students to be exposed to different voices, different styles of expression, different cultures, and one successful way to do this is via literature. For example, I've never murdered an old pawnbroker and her halfwit sister, but after reading "Crime and Punishment" I can probably tell one what it was like to, with varying degrees of accuracy. I've never been whaling, but after reading Moby Dick I might be able to talk intelligently about harpooning and whale oil. So, reading literature satisfies one of the mandates of liberal arts education by exposing students to otherworldly places, characters, and dilemmas.