Robert Cormier in The Chocolate War seems to say no.
Corrie Ten Boom in The Hiding Place would probably say yes.
As for me, it depends on the day.
What will the ends be? I wish I knew. And as for the means? We'll see as we go along. But I have to keep my integrity above all else.
2 comments:
Like Whitman's barbaric YAWP from the rooftops. . . yet in so much of his poetry I find a restlessness, a yearning to say something really important but never really coming quite to it. Like the essayist who forever circles his point. I think that we often WANT to disturb the universe, but we may not actually be able to. This thought you have thrown out is not unlike my post last week. (Are you on Nem's blog? Is that how you happened to "lurk" near mine?)
I haven't read The Hiding Place, but I found the Chocolate War (like all the Cormier I've ever read) to be very dark. It is true that as individuals we are small, and that our mortal span is brief, but it doesn't follow that we are insignificant. There is a line in a children's book that refutes the idea that life is a big competition and the mother instead advises her child to "make bold choices, and for those who can't speak for themselves, use bold voices." Perhaps this means we should strive to do all we can for each person we meet.
Yep, I found you from Nem, but I really think it's funny that our posts would be similar. I guess that teachers think alike.
I know that I really did just throw out a thought in that post, but it's been on my mind a lot the last couple of days, or maybe even weeks.
As far as the authors I've chosen, what I've really done is mix metaphors. While Robert Cormier was a fiction writer, Corrie Ten Boom wrote about her own experiences hiding Jews during the holocaust and then surviving concentration camps after she'd been caught. I think I'd like to believe her view of the universe before I would believe Cormier's. Lately too, I've seen a lot of the dark of humanity than the light. I've always been a bit more optimistic and perhaps naive, but now I find myself continually trying to keep from getting jaded.
Thanks for the food for thought. You have amazing ideas.
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