Victorian Literature and the "Beautiful Lunatic"

Women in the Victorian era must have been fragile creatures indeed. Look at the novel Jane Eyre. The most memorable character in it is Rochester's wife, whom he keeps tidily tucked away in an unfrequented wing of his estate.She escaped one night and tried to set fire to someone's room (offhand I don't remember whether it was Jane's or Rochester's). It all seemed to have been prompted by her jealousy over Jane marrying Rochester -- especially since she was still married to him

The other night Wide Sargasso Sea, a prequel to Jane Eyre, was on Dish Network. Since I am generally a fan, as my son Chris would say, of movies where there are "people speaking English," I thought I'd give it a whirl Sure enough, there was mention of Antoinette, the protagonist's, mother becoming a lunatic. The husband, Edward Rochester, is accosted by Antoinette's black half brother and informed of a family history of lunacy. He then begins to look for signs of it in Antoinette and is not disappointed.

However, as Antoinette explains to Rochester, her mother was locked away and labeled a "lunatic" shortly after her husband cheated on her. Rochester then proceeds to cheat on Antoinette with one of her servants. Antoinette is betrayed and justifiably upset.

I have come to the conclusion that "lunatic" was simply an appellation given to women who were unhappy over their husbands' infidelity. Lunatic was a convenient method of getting these women out of the way so that men could do whatever they wanted without having to hear their wives' pain.

Oprah's Unauthorized Bio and Hipocrisy

Wow. I can't believe that TPTB are so lined up against Kitty Kelley about this, her what, 20, 30th un-authorized biography brings.

Come on, if the British royal family can't stop her from publishing (although they apparently were successful in having the book not published or sold in the UK) what makes Oprah think she can? I realize that she is the Queen of all Media – perhaps she should ditch Steadman and go with Howard Stern).

Oprah, honey, this just makes you look like one big censor and hypocrite. You wouldn't have the slightest problem having any other authors on, you've had KK on before – at least when the subject was someone else.

BTW I would never have bought this book. But the media backlash itself creates a demand. Sort of like when the Vatican came out against The Da Vinci Code and guaranteed a readership of millions. I won't buy the book but now I probably will check it out of the library.

Furthermore, I hear that while threats are made, no one has actually sued Kitty Kelley. Perhaps the basis for this is that the defense for slander/libel is that you are telling the truth.

There has always been a dichotomy between what an "unauthorized" biographer and the subject would say. Obviously, the authorized biographer has been told not to disclose certain things. That alone makes an authorized bio suspect. In this case, as with her other bios that rankled the subject, I think it's in all probability right on.

Regardless what anyone thinks of Kitty Kelley in general (and again, it should be pointed out that Oprah has no problem with exposes of OTHER people) truth is the standard defense again libel/slander.

DNA and Identity, Part II

Comedian Moz Jobrani shocked to learn he's white.


Sorry pal, but as Indo-Europeans, Persians are in fact white. Where do you think Hitler got the term Aryan in the first place? Although really, Iran has been invaded so many times that they are quite mixed.

However, that being said, where is it written that a person has to be something other than white to be made fun of by ignorant people? You could also be white, overweight, somewhat less than whatever the local norm considers beautiful and be mocked for no other reason than you were a convenient target.

At the last census my fiance entered "Other" and then wrote in "Italicus."

Frankly, I think that those who feel the need to represent themselves as something other than what they are deserve some scorn, but not the kind they get for being different. They deserve my scorn because fitting in is so important to them that they are okay with pretending to be something they are not. Hah. Be yourself and if Americans need to learn how to pronounce a name they aren't used to, they will only be enriched by it.

What Are Libraries For?

I ran across this thought-provoking article on Open Salon.

Personally, as long as people need information, I see a need for librarians to connect the two. Just because an infoseeker has heard of Google, that does not mean that they also have any sense of how to evaluate content or formulate an effective search strategy.

And one thing I learned from the tech support trenches at AOL is that no matter how simple you make something, there will be lots of people too dense to figure it out.

Identity, Ethnicity and DNA

Is it true that "biology is destiny?"

I recently started working in medical records at a facility that specializes in children's mental health. I can't help but notice certain things as I am inputting data and filing paperwork. One of the things I've noticed is that when kids come in who are not “white,” a consultation with an ethnic specialist is required.

The advice I've so far seen given by these specialists usually seems to be the same: this ethnic child should have as much contact as possible with non-white relations, primarily white family needs to be educated in the other ethnicity, positive role models should be pointed out in the community and media.

My question is: Does good mental health require a sense of self that equates to one's DNA?

Consider the case of my friend Margaret. She is Norwegian and Gros Vent, adopted by a white family when she was 5 days old. To the best of my knowledge, neither Margaret nor her other Native America adoptee siblings were treated any differently than their parents' biological children. They had exactly the same social and educational opportunities, yet how did they fare in relation to one another?

Bio son: spent 10 years attending college before he eventually got a degree, married his longtime girlfriend and settled down as a manager in a large company.

Bio daughter: married soon after school and as a SAHM raised 2 children. When her kids were still rather young, she had a mid-life crisis of sorts. She left her husband, had affairs and became wildly depressed. She died when a car traveling down the freeway landed on top of hers.

Adopted son: turned out to be flamboyantly gay and appeared in drag shows. Died of AIDS in the early 80's.

Older adopted daughter: 3 unsuccessful marriages, excessive drug use, raging alcohol problem that led to losing custody of her son. She never overcame her addiction and preferred homelessness to living with her adoptive mother. She died of cirrhosis after a lengthy hospital stay.

My friend: Academically successful, earned several advanced degrees and forged a respected career. This year will mark her 24th anniversary to a social worker. I think she was both intrigued and horrified when she met her bio mother after she turned 21. Her bio mother was a raging alcoholic who believed in voodoo. Her bio brother, OTOH, did not drink, was happily married and a decorated veteran of the highway patrol.

What determines who, and what, we are? My friend always had a certain degree of contempt for her adoptive sister's drinking and drugging friends, who seemed to want her to embrace what my friend considered to be a cartoonish hippie idea of what it meant to be Native American. She began calling herself “Feather,” which always struck my friend as patently absurd. She did not have adopt anyone's idea of being native because she already was.

As for myself, I guess I've always felt a certain degree of , well, not confusion exactly, but of a casting about and wanting more involvement with my Cherokee heritage. Yeah, I know, everybody and his brother's dog is part Cherokee. However in my case it's true as my father was from Oklahoma and his mother's name is on the Dawes Roll. It is clear to me that certain aspects of my personality came from there and physically I resemble my father's mother more than mine. But at the same time, I've never felt completely accepted either by white culture, or by native cultures either.

I posted once on a UK-oriented message board that I was of English, Belgian and Cherokee extraction and that I felt a degree of kinship with my Anglo brethren ( despite resembling my Cherokee grandmother, I have one of the most Anglo-sounding names possible). Someone replied that he could not understand someone who was part NA wanting to identify with a culture that had oppressed others. This made no sense whatsoever to me. You are what you are. How can half of yourself look at the other half and think it has no right to exist?

The more I consider the issue, the more complicated it seems to become.