Reflections on the View from the Attic

Beverley E Steichen
English 546
Dr. Janet Winston
15 Dec 2009

Spaces Affected by the Glorious Light of Mother England:
Reflection, Refraction and Transparency

The colonial era of England's greatness was a time when many lands far from her shores came under the dominion and alleged protection of Mother England. The motto, "The sun never sets on the British Empire" meant that all around the globe, wherever light was shining there was some piece of land, with its native inhabitants that "belonged" to England. With comparatively few natural resources on what is largely a barren pile of rock off of the coast of the European continent, England wanted the rich natural resources that were available and accessible in the New World (North America), the West Indies and Caribbean Islands, Africa, India and elsewhere.

I would like to look at England as a bearer of “light” (i.e. the light of "civilization" or religion) and view the effects that this glorious light of Mother England has had on some of her other subjects. By “other” I am referring to subjects that were ruled by the laws and formalities of Englishness, but that were not native-born, white inhabitants of England, and in the case of Tony Last of Hetton Abbey, a true Englishman who finds himself “un-Englished” when he is lost in an Amazon jungle. The varying ways that the light of England reflects, refracts and passes straight through these individuals' lives, dreams and destinies is counter productive to the concepts that we might commonly associate with light, such as clarity, goodness, purity, righteousness.

The Wide Sargasso Sea, a novel by Jean Rhyss, is a reflection of a woman’s life story. Antoinette is the author of the first and third sections of this novel, with the second section being a reflection written by her husband about his time with her and her impact on his proper English self. Reflections and light play important roles in this story and also are significant in the final scene of this novel--and of Jane Eyre, a novel by Charlotte Bronte--where Antoinette's life comes to an end.

Refraction, according to Encarta Dictionary, is “to alter the course of a wave of energy that passes into something from another medium,” and also, to “show something through a different medium: to alter the appearance of something by viewing or showing it through a different medium.” In C. L. R. James’ memoir Beyond a Boundary we can see the effects of refraction upon and surrounding the black men of the West Indies who play the stereotypically English game of cricket. In the course of English “progress” the British annihilated the original native inhabitants of these islands, thereby tragically refracting their natural human trajectory. Then, needing someone to work their newly- stolen plantations, they enslaved blacks from Africa and transplanted them into the West Indian and Caribbean islands, which of course seriously altered their original course of life. Both of these native cultures were passed through the medium of English colonialism and came out altered on the other side.

There is a specie of fish that rely on spurting water at insects outside of the fishes’ pond in order to eat and survive. These archer fish have to master the scientific concept of learning and utilizing refraction. It can be speculated that there are more people who do not have mastery of this knowledge than there are who do. Can we further speculate that, in this area, archer fishes are superior to these people? Comparatively, the West Indies cricket players eventually seemed to out-skill the British players in that region.

The space “within the boundary” of the cricket field functions almost as a pond in which the West Indies players appear to be at least equally skilled and talented at this British game as do the native Britons. However, when they move “beyond this boundary” they are refracted into something that is not what they originally were destined to be, but still is certainly not British! According to James’s recollections in Beyond a Boundary, many of the West Indian colonials learned the “game of the English” and became better at it than the originals. However, their image remained refracted and they were never a true reflection of the colonizing and patronizing country of England. Even the great "Constantine... had no theory...no abstract studies with which to square [To square something is to make it straight and right; a refraction is not square.] what he saw with his eyes or heard with his ears. He was on lunching if not on dining terms with cricketing members of the British aristocracy and big bourgeoisie."(James 111) Had he been a true reflection and not an altered refraction of them, they could have dined together.

Mother England does not appear to be complimentary or nurturing in these lights. The “jolly-good,” “cheerio” light-hearted nature that seems so English and so filled with loving-kindness and goodwill to all men cannot be found here. It seems that the bright light of the sun that never sets on the English Empire, should not be turned too directly onto the motivations and true nature of the ruling English class. Tony Last, the owner and gentleman of Hetton Abbey in England is an example of the real thing: the well-bred Englishman that could be an example of decorum, decency, temperance and honor.

In Evelyn Waugh’s novel A Handful of Dust, the very title might be reflective of the value that Waugh himself places on the concept of entitlement based on being born, bred and reared as English. After a lifetime of virtually no errors in his English gentleman persona--with no visible “chinks in his armor”--Tony Last is doomed to spend what could be the last half of his lifetime as a literal slave, trapped by the only other English speaking man in the jungles of the Amazon, rather near to the places where Antoinette started and the West Indian cricketers played out their lives of colonized otherness. Having begun life as an insider, Tony Last becomes transparent in relation to the “light” of England, as he no longer reflects it, and is not affected by or effecting it in anyway. It is as though this important English landowner gentleman has become invisible. Like so many disenfranchised workers all over the world-- in diamond mines, rubber, sugar, coffee, tea, tobacco or indigo plantations, who were enslaved by England-- Tony is only given food and comfort when he performs his task of reading to Mr. Todd. The true Englishman has been "othered." Ironically, what Tony is forced to read is the work of who is arguably the most widely recognized English author, Charles Dickens, whose stories about the downtrodden are all situated in the same England that Tony will never see again.

The first reflection in Wide Sargasso Sea is of Antoinette's mother, who "had to hope every time she passed a looking glass." Her youth and beauty seemed to be fading, but she had to remain hopeful even though her family was isolated and alone; hopeful that she might still find a man who would marry her and save them. Antoinette, although white and of British ancestry did not benefit from any blessings of England or privileged whiteness and she said of herself, "The sun couldn't warm me." (Rhyss 14) She refers to the sun in the sky, but readers of the text realize that the shining sun of Englishness would also do nothing to make the life of this Creole girl a warmer place. The sun that never sets on the English empire only warms its native sons and daughters.

Antoinette’s time at the convent were months of seeing the beauty of other young women while never seeing a reflection of herself, as there was no looking glass. (Rhyss 32) This was also the time that she learned Catholic scriptures and about “the perpetual light” [of God] which will “shine now and at the hour of our death.” She reflects at this time, comparatively, that her mother “hated strong light” and “loved shade.” Throughout the book Antoinette is typecast as being like her mother, in beauty, passions, and following the same path of madness. It may be that, like her mother, Antoinette also preferred shade over strong light--even that "perpetual light" of European religion.

The final references of light and reflection in Wide Sargasso Sea are when Antoinette is confined to the tower and guarded by Grace Poole in England. From her personal reflections:

In this room I lie awake shivering, for it is very cold...There is no looking glass here and I don’t know what I am like now...Their world, as I always knew, [is] made of cardboard and everything is coloured brown or dark red or yellow that has no light in it.

On the last escape from her confinement, Antoinette is attracted by the light and warmth of a candle burning and she is reminded of the sunshine that came through the window of her Aunt Cora’s room in Jamaica. She knocks over the candles, starting a fire and by that eerie light she finally sees “the ghost of a woman who they say haunts this place."

"She [the woman] was surrounded by a gilt frame” and is of course her own reflection in a mirror as she was going up to the roof to get away from the scorching fire. Finally able to see herself, as the wife of an English gentleman, she should see the reflection of an English Lady. However, Antoinette's image is so altered by her time of captivity in England that she does not know herself. By a simple twisting of words I think that the frame in which she is reflected could be called a “guilt frame.” Being “framed” or imprisoned by English standards, to which she should not be held, beautiful Antoinette of the island has been transformed into a disparate and desperate ghoul. The guilt that Rochester should feel from his “framing” of this girl and condemning her to England is great! The final reflection that she sees before she jumps is in a vision of the pool of Calibri from her childhood.

The colonials of the British West Indies, as represented in Beyond a Boundary also were not allowed to truly reflect Englishness, although they were ruled by England until the decolonization and abolishment of slavery. In his article on refraction, entitled "Watch and Learn: Benchwarming pays off for the archer fish" Chris Brody makes most of his illustrations about the skill of learning refraction as compares to sports. In his opening sentence Brody mentions basketball, baseball and throwing darts as skills that compare well to the talent of the archer fish. The comparison between fish and people may seem absurd; however, for much of history the people of England did not believe black people of the West Indian/Jamaican area to be quite as human as whites.

Of special interest to the scientific world, this skill of the archer fish is not instinctual, but is acquired and the fish can learn it simply by watching others. This serves well in this comparison to West Indian cricketers and their refracted status. Instant thought and calculation are essential to a cricket player. In seconds--from the moment the cricket ball is bowled until the batsman strikes it--he must observe, calculate, predict and act upon his prediction for what kind of a ball it is and what type of strike will be most effective in attempting to send it beyond the boundary. Doing this well will assure his survival as a cricket player in the same way that learning refraction assures the survival of the archer fish.

When the English colonizers brought their traditionally British game with them to the West Indies, the men of the island first watched them play, then began to imitate them, and eventually became better than the Brits at their own game. Not only is refraction a part of any game which has moving objects, goals and potential angles, it also represents what happened to the lives of these West Indian players because of their relationship to Mother England. If a black player was the best on his team and would logically be moving toward becoming the captain, he would find his path altered or turned aside--refracted--as a white captain of lesser skill would be appointed. According to James (James 70) this was because the white authorities of cricket "believed (or pretended to, it does not matter) that cricket would fall into chaos and anarchy if a black man were appointed captain." This reflects the Euro/white belief that blacks do not have the civilizing capacity of whites.

In the case of Tony Last, gentleman from Waugh's Handful of Dust, his decision to go beyond the boundary of the English sun, is what cast his fate and future into transparency. At the time that Tony himself was deep in the jungle and beyond the help of England, his friend and fellow gentleman, Jock Mendez back in England was assuring Tony's wife "Oh, I imagine [that Tony is absolutely safe]. The whole world is civilized now, isn't it--charabancs and Cook's offices everywhere." From their focal point in jolly old England, they could not imagine a place where Englishness had no effect and made no impression. Outside of the sunshine of the English Empire, Tony will remain transparent: invisible, offering nothing to and taking nothing from his native land.

For the non-native children of Mother England who are represented in this paper, the place that they hold in the British empire is unclear. They are treated with the regard of bastard children at best, and at the worst--as intruders on the land that was originally their own, but is now owned by England. If the veil is removed from this proper, righteous and dignified mothering country the underlying motivation for conquest and colonization of foreign lands is not as benevolent as she would like it to seem. The idea of spreading the good light of civilization and Christianity, is overshadowed by the desire for goods and the same politics of world domination that has driven every empire in history.

James states in Beyond a Boundary that “political passion easily submits all other values to its purposes." (James 111) This is the conclusive statement of this paper. A mother who wants to take care of her children will legally adopt more if she wants them. She will not steal or kidnap them from their original soil, or worse yet simply move in uninvited and displace their own mother. Any historical myths of England’s benevolent desire to spread civilization and light to the dark and savage regions of the world should be put to rest and the truth of a once powerful country selfishly trying to submit all other countries to its greedy purposes, but ultimately failing, should be understood.


Texts Cited:

James, C. L. R. Beyond a Boundary 1983 Robert Lypsite

Rhyss, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea 1999 Norton and Company, Inc.

Waugh, Evelyn. A Handful of Dust 1934 Little Brown and Company

Other works cited:

Brody, Chris. "Watch and Learn: Benchwarming pays off for the archer fish" American Scientist/Sigma XI Science Research Society

Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2004 Microsoft Corporation.

What am I doing here?

by Beverley Steichen - Monday, 7 September 2009, 10:58 PM

Hi,

I am catching up for one thing... but in the bigger picture, what am I doing at HSU in the Master's program for English to teach writing (if I actually am here-not to be metaphysical, but you all heard my story)?

I am here because I had too many intriguing conversations with a professor of English, specializing in Shakespeare and Film, when I was a career path worker at Trader Joe's. After being dragged into one of his night classes, then another...I started my re-education in earnest and haven't lost my steam yet. After the B.A. it seemed right to stay on path and keep going for the next degree and so here I am. Looking forward to teaching, if not in the community college arena, I also have an inroad to being a specialist with a charter school which has students throughout most of the central half of the state. I also have a vision of being a great children's writer and creating the socio-political revolution that this country/world needs through books, without anyone having to get hurt.

So far as "What do my instructors say English is?" that would be best summed up as a changing, world-unifying language with many very different dialects. English is a living, growing, morphing language that is spreading over the globe and as such, there should be a job somewhere for anyone who wants to teach it. If you don't mind leaving the Pacific Redwood coast and going to another part of the world... there should be someone who you can find to pay you to teach their children English.

Feminism

Beverley Steichen
English 600-Dr. Stacey
Critique and questions on Pope’s Feminism/ Gender/ etc.

I did not take issue with much of Pope’s overview of feminism. I did note several places where he allowed for the more up-to-date views of alternate genders and sexualities (119 top). I can see that his views that some stereotyping is valid would bother many feminists that I know, but I did not disagree with these views. In my experience there are many stereotypes which seem valid, but should never be used to confine or dictate behavior. The top of p. 116 is misleading if not immediately preceded by the paragraph on the bottom of page 115. Pope is not claiming as his own, or even endorsing the gender stereotypes listed on 116, but is simply indicating that they exist and in fact are contested by modern thinkers, especially feminist theorists perhaps.

His views seemed to be possibly a bit weak in the area of social and literary agency and empowerment of women and focus more on the 60s/ 70s idea of equality for women.
Is the contemporary feminist view about feminism and literature that all lit from all eras should be re-evaluated under a feminist lens?
If so, does it follow that the reviews will be correct evaluations of written work that was created in a time when socially accepted views were not what they are today?

My View of Forster

Beverley E Steichen
English 546- Dr. Janet Winston
Analytical Essay #1
29 October 2009

The Fragmented Connections of Howards End

"Only connect..." is the statement beneath the frontispiece of my personal copy of Howards End by E. M. Forster, and indeed it is the thesis statement of this entire novel about class division in turn-of-the-century-England. The Schlegel sisters are a centrifugal force and we can observe the various ways in which they affect, and attempt to make connections between, the characters who surround them. While it is easy to see the "otherness" of Leonard Bast as a lowly clerk with no independent means, I would like to examine the ways in which ethnicity, social status and gender create a state of otherness for almost everyone in this novel, focusing on the "vital disconnection"(5) both socially, sexually and economically, within the sphere of community surrounding Howards End. Margaret's "sermon" thesis of "only connect" is Forster's own social hope for a connection between many opposing forces, which were prevalent in civilized English society in the early 20th century and continue in capitalist societies today.

Forster himself felt a sense of disconnection in his personal life and it is easy to recognize his views and social message spoken vicariously through his character of Margaret Schlegel. According to Henry S. Turner, in his article (1) entitled, "Empires of Objects: Accumulation and Entropy in E. M. Forster's Howards End:" "Forster received 8000 pounds when he was eight years old [and had a] lifelong preoccupation with the morality of living on unearned income." Forster underscores this sentiment in a biography written about his great-aunt about his dilemma of "how to uphold the civic and cultural virtues intrinsic to the rentier way of life, yet avoid complicity with commerce or technology."

"Forster is often portrayed as a writer at odds with the incipient modernism of contemporaries such as Joyce or Woolf."(2) and according to Leslie White (5) Forster was vexed by the problem of "maintaining and extending aristocracy in the midst of democracy." He struggled with the fact that he was inherently independent and justified this status in his essay "Art For Art's Sake," about the intrinsic value of what an artist (who does not hold down a traditional job) offers to society. Binary oppositions which plagued his own life seem to be what Forster wished to connect in Howards End. In his attempts to connect the male/female, the wealthy/impoverished, the ignorant/educated, the homeless/landed, or the aesthetic vs. pragmatic characters in this book, Forster’s efforts may be valiant, but his success is questionable at best.

The disconnection of the dominant male and disenfranchised female, particularly between the first Mrs. Wilcox and her husband and eldest son, is well illustrated by the introduction of the motor car. This masculine machine is thrust into a space which had previously been a paddock belonging to and revered by the late Mrs. Wilcox. "[Charles Wilcox] and his father--what trouble they had had to get this very garage! With what difficulty had they persuaded her to yield them the paddock for it--the paddock that she loved more dearly than the garden itself!" (HE 67) An enclosed small field or meadow, this space represents the pastoral or perhaps "virginal" purity of classic English life. An enclosure for the protection of the men's motor car is forced upon this previously recognized woman's space for the purpose of men driving their motor car in and out of this newly man-claimed space whenever they choose. This resonates of rape (with suggestions of Oedipal overtones), which not only divides the wishes of men from those of women, but also divides the savage from the civilized; the profane from the sacred. It is progress, which sacrifices connection. Industrial progress at the expense of social well-being is precisely one of the social issues that Forster wrestled with and never resolved.

Andrew Thacker, of the University of Ulster states in his article, “E. M. Forster and the Motor Car”

Connection ... is not merely a trope for fulfilling human relationships in the novel. We should take it at times in a brutal and literal fashion: this is a novel about making connections between different forms of space, and about the experience of moving between these spaces in the process of making connections.”(2)

The living spaces represented in Howards End and the valuing or devaluing of these spaces give us more examples of disconnection. The removal of the Schlegel family from Wickham Place at the end of their lease period forces of them into nomadic existence, separating them from the life of leisure to which they have grown accustomed. The tender feelings for Howards End which are only felt by Mrs. Ruth Wilcox form a sort of disconnection between her and the rest of the Wilcox family, who often find fault with the house.

When Henry does not want Helen Schlegel--in her dishonored state of premarital pregnancy--to spend even one night in the house, he gives his first indication of fondness for the house or his concern about the wishes of his departed wife. This false concern, which is nothing more than a lie to serve his present agenda, widens the gulf of social and moral division that exists throughout the novel between Henry and Helen, and creates a rift between Henry and Margaret, his new wife.

Helen complains to her cousin Frieda that "the Wilcox's collect houses as your Victor collects tadpoles," and goes on to list the eight homes owned or occupied by the Wilcox family while she and her siblings are temporarily homeless. This reemphasizes the social disparity of excess juxtaposed with lack of basic necessities, which is most easily seen in the case of Leonard and Jacky Bast.

In the Forster's representation of the Basts, it is interesting to note that the greatest number of revisions he made while writing Howards End were the changing of simple pronouns. According to Mary Pinkerton(6), "a total of 794 changes involving pronouns" were made by Forster in his revisions of this novel; "601 are insertions and 193 are deletions. Forster inserts pronouns more than three times as often as he deletes them." Many of these pronoun changes turn a general object into an object which is undoubtedly owned by a particular character (i.e. when Margaret argues that spending one night at Howards End would do Helen good, Forster first wrote it to say, "one night in the house," then he revised three times, from "our house" to "that house" and finally to "your house.") These revisions create significant changes in meaning.

Forster employs this simple technique to dehumanize the Basts and set them outside of society, in the realm of others. Pinkerton states, "Instead of describing Leonard greeting "her" (Jacky), Forster revised the passage to read, "greeting the apparition with much spirit, and helping it off with its boa?" and "Instead of using personal pronouns to refer to Leonard, he becomes 'the boy,' 'a nice creature,' 'the victim,' 'the father,' 'the missing article,' and 'the fellow:'" all impersonal pronouns, "and in so doing he conveys their intensified alienation from each other, from other characters in the novel, and from society at large." (Pinkerton)

In Margaret's obsession with the conditions of the Basts we are given a glimpse of one of Forster's greatest unresolved dichotomies: the binary oppositions of independence and intervention. Kim Shirkhani(3) notes that Margaret "articulates a position similar to Forster's in 'The Challenge of Our Time' while believing in an inner, the subjective realm that must be protected from political intervention, she at the same time sees a connection between this inner realm and societal condition, and advocates intervention when it comes to the latter."

The lack of intimate connection imposed by the author between the objectified Leonard and Jacky is easy to observe. I suggest that there is an equivalent lack of personal connection among the Schlegel family which is not a focal point, because the Schlegels are standing firmly on their individual fortunes and therefore do not necessarily require connection for survival. The desire for practicality, which Margaret possesses is nothing like the impulsive and impetuous nature of Helen or the stoic reticence of Tibby. The Schlegels rotate, each within her/his own separate and disconnected universe. Within the intersecting communities of the three families of Wilcox, Schlegel and Bast, there exists in the personal character of each individual, tendencies and character traits, which keep them disconnected one from another and without the ability to understand or relate.

Within the Wilcox family we see greater singularity of personality (aside from Dolly--a vapid, yet entertaining, twit) in that they are somewhat dull (albeit dependable), traditional, spiritless characters who entertain themselves with expensive hobbies and accoutrements. They lack the ambition of Leonard Bast and the cosmopolitan spirit of the Schlegels and are therefore very like one another, but without the social “mortar” to connect to each other; they seem alone even when they are crowded together in one room.

In Forster’s uncomfortably forced resolution at the end of the story, when Helen’s illegitimate son is announced as the eventual heir to Howards End, it is not easy to see how the Henry Wilcox of this scene is in any way connected to the Henry we have come to know throughout the novel. In an article by Leslie White (5) it is stated that “In the final scenes of Howards End, Schlegels are ascendant and Wilcoxes shamed and acquiescent.” White asserts that many readers find this “conclusion forced and implausible, and the novel’s achievement undermined by plot contrivances.” White cites a claim made “nearly 40 years ago” by a Wilfred Stone, who said that “Forster does not want connection at all” and that

"Margaret and Helen Schlegel are domineering, destructive elitists who, having established at Howards End and idyllic sanctuary of “personal relations” and “the inner life,” permit the devastated, uncomprehending Henry Wilcox to reside there."

This view of the do-good Schlegel sisters is not without foundation. It is valid to wonder how devastating the “breakdown” that Henry has over the incarceration of his eldest son, Charles, would be. If Henry has simply been overcome and subdued by the zealous sisters Schlegel, then it is bad form to chalk it up as successful “connection” of values. In fact, although she is famous for the “only connect” soliloquy, White suggests that “in the final chapters, to cite but one example, Margaret appears to have transmuted into an imperialistic materfamilias, a female Henry in effect, who autocratically 'straightens tangles,' adjusts 'lopsidedness,' is 'unable to forgive' and 'who has charged straight through these Wilcoxes and broken up their lives'.” The implication is that rather than ending the patriarchal structure it critiques, the novel simply restructures the power figure and the Schlegels are as domineering at the end as are the Wilcoxes at the start: only inverting the hierarchy of the novel’s characters.

In two cases we brush refreshingly close to possible real connection. One of these is thwarted and then cut off prematurely, while the other remains--leaving us with some reason to hope for a better, more connected future. It is evident that Leonard Bast, before the good-intentioned interference of Margaret and Helen, is trying to better himself educationally and socially. He has an adequate job and some measure of time to read and go to the occasional musical performance. Leonard is trying to connect the beast with the monk within himself. He has a tender heart toward his unloved wife, Jacky, and a genuine desire to make of himself a better man. As an interesting project, in their spare time the Schlegels manage to take helpful steps which eventually ruin, and bring the untimely end to, his life. Leonard's inner desire to improve within society is something that we are not allowed to see to its proper end. It is never known if Leonard would have failed or succeeded in connecting the base man with the refined man within himself.

The second ray of hope we have to view is the friendship between the son of Helen Schlegel, who is to inherit Howard’s End and the son of the farm hand. These boys are children and play together and have formed a bond as the last scene closes in this statement narrative of Mr. Forster. Again, we are not privileged to see this possibility to its natural end. I think this is because despite his own hope and unrecognized personal naïveté, Forster just did not know if it could be. So, in the spirit of hopefulness, he leaves us with an open ended conclusion. Optimistically, I would like to say that it will work. The two boys, neither one from the top of the social ladder of English society may forge ahead toward a new and better connected society. I also do not know.

White asserts in her essay(5) that after closely studying the artistry of Forster's works, it is "immediately evident in the famous epigraph of Howards End, removed from its position within the narrative [by Forster] presumably to declare thematic intention" that Forster recognizes his own failure to prove that connection is possible. By punctua- ting "Only connect..." with ellipses, Forster points out the admitted incompleteness of his hope that connection can be made. According to White's sources (Duckworth and Wilde) this betrays Forster's "chagrined realization of his limited ability to correct society's problems or improve human life."

My conclusion is that the message of Forster, delivered in the sermon of Margaret Schlegel, fails; there is greater fragmentation within spaces and relationships the more intimately we examine each one, and the peaceful resolution we see at the end of the novel is actually the result of acceptance of difference where no connection could be made. Forster leaves us with hope for peace, but through means of a different sermon. The conclusion may better be stated as “Only accept."


Sources Cited:

1. Turner, Henry S. Empires of Objects: Accumulation and Entropy in E. M. Forster's Howards End. Twentieth Century Literature, Fall2000, Vol. 46 Issue 3, p328 18p;(AN 3995536)

2. Thacker, Andrew. E. M. Forster and the Motor Car. Literature & History, 2005 , pp 37-52, 16p; (AN 7697537)

3. Shirkhani, Kim. The Economy of Recognition in Howards End. Twentieth Century Literature, Summer 2008, Vol. 54 Issue 2, p193-216 (AN3692006)

4. Lorentzen, Eric. Review of Education, Pedagogy & Cultural Studies, Oct-Dec2004, Vol. 26 Issue 4, p289-311, 23p; DOI: 10.1080/10714410490905357; (AN 15631317)

5. White, Leslie. Vital Disconnection in Howards End. Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 51, No 1 Spring, 2005, pp 43-63

6. Pinkerton, Mary. Ambiguous Connections: Leonard Bast's Role in Howards End. Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 31, No. 2/3, E. M. Forster Issue (Summer-Autumn, 1985), pp. 23... Hofstra University (not one of my 5 resources since 2000)

Thoughts on Vygotsky

Beverley E Steichen
English 611
Dr. Nikola Hobbel
16 December 2009

Transformations to Education and Early Childhood Development:
Lev Vygotsky's Building Blocks

Prior to studies done on developmental learning by theorist Lev Vygotsky,approaches to education seemed to consist of presuppositions of common knowledge and vagaries of method and form in teaching children and students of all ages. With refreshing insights and intellectual zeal, Vygotsky reduced the concepts and step-by-step processes of intellectual development down to basic, elemental blocks in a stratified learning continuum. By studying these and learning their importance in the structuring of the students' learning environment, we as teachers can create an atmosphere of optimal individual, group, and teacher/learner interactions and the most effective learning arena for each of our students.

As teachers of writing, knowledge of the basic tenets of learning development and the ability to recognize and utilize these developmental steps is essential; to be the very best teachers, it is imperative. The antiquated American ideas of teaching to the class as a whole and unified entity--with each student successfully digesting each part of each lesson in a step-lock system--are widely recognized as having failed and have been rejected by many in the educational system. Concepts such as "scaffolding," which is teaching a lesson on many levels of learning ability and maturation, thereby speaking to the needs of each student as a learning individual in lieu of the class as a single unit, have taken the place of outmoded methods. Lev Vygotsky's theories of learning stages and student-centered learning are among the most valuable of the psychological and behavioral studies done in the twentieth century.

Although Vygotsky's studies were carried out by observing children, the results and experimental data are applicable to learners at all ages and learning levels. This paper is meant to apply to the teaching of writers at a high-school or community college level. It will examine the building block system of human learning development, with a focus also on some of the social and interdisciplinary applications of universal inter- dependency, which illustrates Vygotsky's theory that all true learning consists of attaching new concepts to a personal foundation of past experience.

Some Vygotskian concepts to be discussed in this paper are the zone of proximal development (ZPD), “accessing prior knowledge,” the learning concept of “I+1” and “universal interdependency,” keeping in mind that this all falls under the heading of “learner-centered” education, which is far removed from the old “teacher-centered” or “prescribed curriculum centered” learning of earlier years, at least in America.

Learner-centered education did not originate with Lev Vygotsky. Confucius, Socrates, John Locke and many others were also proponents of making the individual student the focal point of his personal educational experience. (Henson). The Vygotskian concept of building on the prior knowledge of each student goes back at least as far as the Bible where in the book of Isaiah 28:10 it says, "Whom will he teach knowledge?... precept must be upon precept, ...line upon line,...here a little, there a little." This was written between 740 and 680 B.C. and is an example of accessing prior knowledge and adding one concept at a time onto this foundation of experience in each student.

Kenneth T. Henson, in his article "Foundations for Learner-Centered Education: A knowledge base" mentions many noteworthy scholars, psychologists, sociologists and philosophers from around the world who have studied the benefits of keeping the focus of the learning experience centered on the learner. From a cultural-historical perspective relative to studies done in many countries of Europe, Russia and eventually in the United States, the arena of teaching literacy in classrooms where there is ever increasing diversity of students, should be approached as an interactive and inter-responsive--however, learner-centered--group endeavor.

Vygotsky, Jean Piaget and John Dewey are responsible for the pedagogy of “constructivism” (Henson 14) which is a learner-centered method of problem solving using inherent logic and concrete solutions--the actual manipulation of available objects to achieve a solution. Simplistically speaking, human beings are natural problem solvers and the course of a human life consists of an ongoing series of problems to be solved. Given a problem such as "Put the book on the shelf," a child creatively uses tools at his/her disposal to create a way to solve the problem of getting a book onto a high shelf. This concept can expand to the greater outside world, with a problem such as “throw the ball onto the house” and can further advance into abstract questions of logic such as, “Can the ball be on the house?” and then “Can the house be on the ball?” Any person who is thus trained to find solutions using logic, imagination, determination, accessed prior knowledge and available tools or techniques to find answers will have a more rich and satisfying life, and will be of greater benefit to any social or academic community of which they are part.

Recognizing the importance of interdependency is pivotal in understanding the theories and methodology of Lev Vygotsky and their application to a person’s social placement and socio-political contributions and views, according to Henson’s essay. Any member of a community comes in with a personal base of knowledge and personal history. New concepts which are received from the community are woven into that pre-existing basis, while fibers of the new member's experience also weave into and enrich the group. Thomas Jefferson is quoted by Henson, saying:

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. There is no safe deposit for the functions of government but with the people themselves nor can they be safe without information." (Thomas Jefferson 1816)

One hundred years before Vygotsky's work in Russia, Jefferson saw the necessity of intellectual interconnectedness for social well being in America. Yet it was another fifty years before Colonel Francis Parker of New Hampshire, took the idea up in the field of education. He was met with such resistance from the educational community in America that he went to Berlin, Germany, to be educated in the concepts of learner-centered methods of educating children. "When [he was] told that the courses he had chosen would not lead to a degree, his response...was, 'But they do lead to the children of America.'" (Henson 9)

During this time in history Vygotsky's work remained in Russia; it was not printed in English until the 1960s, after Dewey's similar--but far less comprehensive-- theories of education had been introduced. Vygotsky strongly criticized formerly held popular beliefs that the preformed ideals of the future adult were lying dormant within a child. (Vygotsky 6) Nor did he endorse the “tabula rasa” philosophy of John Locke, which was held by Dewey. (Henson 10) All of Vygotsky’s theories and prescribed methods of teaching presupposed a “knowledge base” that is owned by all thinking individuals regardless of any other factor. It is upon this knowledge base that any successive and successful learning will take place. With or without instruction, the base will be increasing, but with good instruction and--more importantly--rich opportunities for experiential learning the knowledge base (which of course, will then be a broader base for future learning) will grow more rapidly, if the learner is comfortable within a non-threatening and safe learning environment.

While the progressive stages of learning are similar, that is not to suggest that all learning is inter-related. It was once believed by psychologists that all learning was beneficial across domains, which is to say that “any improvement in any specific ability results in a general improvement in all abilities.”(Vygotsky 82) (i.e. studying mathematics would also make you better at geography, Latin, and all other academic subjects). It is now believed that the only areas of academic expertise which are improved by studying another subject are ones which share common factors or methods of mastery.

Human learning development, according to some of Lev Vygotsky's theories of development, follows a sequential series of steps.(Crawford 114) From pre-verbal infancy, into the schooling years and we can speculate even further beyond and into adulthood, the pattern follows: 1) awareness of the availability of a tool, sign or word followed by 2) discovery of our personal access to the same, and finally 3) the question of "what can I now do with this tool, sign or word for myself (early development) and/or for the community(later)?"

Without oversimplifying, I would like to offer briefly from my own observation of more than sixteen children the similar experiences of pre-verbal infants when discovering their own feet. Of this group there was no exception to this series of steps, although reactions and responses were individual; therefore, I offer it as somewhat conclusive. At the developmental stage of infancy where the active infant is not yet crawling, but may or may not have the ability to roll over she notices that there are feet in her line of vision. The feet are watched with interest for a brief period of time and then in another step the infant discovers that they can be grasped by the hands. Now that the feet are "owned" they can be manipulated. From this point, the feet are a first toy (or tool) for the infant, because she does not yet have the knowledge base to consider them as a means of walking, nor does she know what walking is.

The discoveries that follow, and the accompanying results are individualized, according to the infant. If the foot is scratched by a fingernail or put into the mouth and encounters an early tooth, the results are not favorable and usually not repeated. However, many manipulations of this newly discovered tool are pleasant and even studying it visually and learning about the foot and making noises to it or about it are common (universal in this small study group). I allow that this was not a formal experiment, as there was no control group, but I offer it as supporting evidence of the Vygotskian progression of learning stages, which will then be repeated in myriad stages of every learner’s life.

At this stage of life the foundation of prior knowledge is difficult to assess, but evidently in its beginning--and therefore most limited--stage. From this point, according to Vygotsky’s theory of the zone of proximal development, all the lessons learned by The ZPD represents the area in a learner's development which contains the skills--physical or deductive--that can be performed with assistance or as part of a cooperative group, but are not yet within the scope of achievements that can be performed alone by the learner. Therefore, the ZPD contains developing capabilities rather than mastered skills. Once a concept is mastered it becomes part of the established “prior knowledge.” The I + 1 concept of learning is simply the idea of adding new concepts onto the present knowledge base (that is the "I") and with the simple consecutive addition of each new concept the "I" expands.

With each simple or complex stimulus or discovery, with every new word, tool, sign or concept the developmental progression of concepts passing through the ZPD is the same: awareness; followed by personal ownership; and ultimately to utilization. In time the statements of “There is a foot. It is my foot. How can I use the foot?” may be replaced with, “There is a cure for cancer. It is my cure. How can I use this cure?”

According to Vygotsky, skills which are completely outside of the child's present developmental capabilities will not go into the ZPD; it follows that there is no danger in exposure to more advanced data, since any concept that is too large will "go overhead."

Vygotsky’s theory of the ZPD can easily synthesize the opposing beliefs of Swiss philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, “who wanted to protect children from society” and of Dewey who “believed that the only way a child would develop to its potential was in a social setting.” (Henson 11) Since the ZPD will only contain concepts that are within the intellectual grasp of the child and are able to be achieved or actualized with assistance, any concept that is too large should have no impact. The "works in progress" in this zone of cognitive development will contain cultural tools and concepts that are relevant and familiar to the individual learner and are applicable to the individual child in regard to her prior knowledge, socio-cultural background and her place within a learning community. This place in the community is a major focus in Paul D Crawford's essay "Educating for Moral Ability: reflections on moral development based on Vygotsky's theory of concept formation." Crawford posits that the "fundamental of universal interdependency" is an absolute in the process of intellectual development. Universal interdependency is the interweaving of the learner taking strands from the community and also giving back into this community of group knowledge and is imperative for successful development. (Crawford, abstract) In Crawford’s essay he claims that Vygotsky identified five types of thinking complexes: associative; collective; chain; diffuse; and pseudo-concept, all of which he believed to be crucial for learning to take place. (Crawford 115)

The “associative complex” connects objects of similar usefulness or shared features. “...while comparing...pictures a child may associate a wheelbarrow with an apple because both are red, or [a wheelbarrow] with a wagon because both are...moved by people.”

The “collective complex” groups objects according to their complementarities or ability to function together. For instance, collectively a child would group a saucepan and a wooden spoon together, where associatively the spoon might go with a garden spade.

The complex which functions like a “chain” are made when previously formed knowledge leads in a step by step pattern to a linked chain of thought, much like the connection or neural synapses firing one after the other in a row, which becomes a set pattern. It may be that a porch swing is associated with a rope, which brings to mind leading a pony around a pasture and that leads to memories of Grandpa’s house with memories of Grandma’s home-made cookies.

The diffuse complex” is much like the chain complex mentioned above, but with links missing. Something like a train of thought that jumps unnecessary tracks. One thought leads to another in the same way that the chain complex works, but “some of the links of the chain have been removed. From the chain of connections above, it follows that a person could be reminded of home-made cookies every time she sees a porch swing, although no one else sees the connection. I believe this is often a reason for misunderstanding to take place between teacher and student and it may be most easily described in a mathematical realm. Once the student has full mastery of basic concepts, he may not mention those in his question about more advanced concepts, assuming that they are in a presupposed pool of common knowledge. Young college students and even those in high-school are already or nearly adults with a great store of personal knowledge and personal experience.

According to Crawford this set of complexes is responsible for “startling associations and generalizations, which cannot be easily verified through perception or practical action.” This can mean that the student sees a valid connection that is unseen by the teacher, but may result in a demeaning tone toward the student. In a pre-Vygotskian mode, the idea of the student seeing a connection that did not come from the teachers' knowledge base may not have been accepted. As teachers we should ask what the connections are that are being presented, before declaring that there is no connection

The final complex is the “pseudo-concept” which acts as “a bridge between thinking in complexes and genuine conceptual thinking... Essentially, in complex thinking meaning is acquired whereas in conceptual thinking meaning is created.” (Crawford 116, emphasis in original text).

The basis for Crawford’s focus in “Educating for Moral Ability” is the ethical ideal set forth by Vygotsky which must under gird any group based learning situation where interdependency is the key. Called “morals” or “ethics” or “social responsibility,” this idea opposes some theories of all things being relative and no responsibility being imposed upon any member of the community. According to Vygotsky’s interdependent and socially interactive learning methods, in order for a learner-centered, group-learning experience to take place, an understanding of the value of each person’s place, needs and contributions to the group as a whole need to be recognized, acknowledged and affirmed.

In her article, "Linking Writing and Community through the Children's Forum," Anne Haas Dyson (Lee, Smagorinsky, ch. 6) endorses this concept as she studies observations of children utilizing socially available and familiar popular media characters in their development of new skills of classroom socio-politics. While the behaviors of these familiar characters are widely and well known by these youngsters, the concepts of social equality, personal agency, independence and interdependence are actualizing in their zone of proximal development. Furthermore, these concepts are multi-layered and for each individual learner they may take on different relevance and levels of depth. (Vygotsky 2)

This is where a pedagogue who uses a scaffolding structure is most effective. Each student can be allowed to feel the importance of his own placement in the learning community for optimal learning to take place. In a safe and vital group, a learner should feel that he is receiving what he needs from the group and that his contribution is vital and appreciated by the group as a whole. At the young adult ages in high-school and community colleges, this concept is absolutely critical and applicable to community membership in the professional world and job market. However, this can be a difficult task for a teacher with many cultural, intellectual and skill-level backgrounds represented in one classroom.

An example given in chapter 8, of Lee and Smagorinsky illustrates this. In the essay entitled, "Idiocultural Diversity in Small Groups: The Role of the Relational Framework in Collaborative Learning" by Peter Smagorinsky and Cindy O'Donnell-Allen, (Lee, Smagorinsky 165-190) Cindy--a high-school teacher--relates the findings of observations made of high-school students completing a group project in small groups without direct supervision of an instructor. The students had sufficient knowledge of the subject material and were provided with the tools necessary to complete the task. The significant and determining factor in the ways that each group's efforts differed, was the group interaction. This was the focal point of the study.

The group interactions while working cooperatively on an art project were recorded and decoded according to the merit of statements made. Comments were codified as "positive affirmation," "inclusion," "courtesy," "destructive discourtesy," "resistance to discourtesy" and "off-task." It is interesting, but not necessarily telling, that the study group consisting of all girls remained better focused and had few "off task" comments, where the group of four boys and one girl (who was admittedly targeted) had 5.73 times as many "off-task" comments as all other comments combined. One boy contributed more than one-third of these remarks alone, many of which were demeaning comments directed at the only girl or the only black boy in the group (Lee, Smagorinsky 172). That observation aside, the results from this study evidenced that the teacher's "intentions" for a cooperative and individually rich experience did not guarantee any Utopian outcome. As teachers, we must remain aware that our intention for a particular group activity may not manifest into the ideally desired results.

I was disappointed in one response in my small group discussion of the results mentioned above. The response was, “Well, that’s life.” This is true and to a degree we must allow for basic human nature, but to what degree is that innate and to what degree learned from our social constructs? I believe that Vygotsky could imagine an improved basic human nature, if we only improve the learning environment in which that nature finds its developmental roots.

Synthesis of the old with the new is also a key to Vygotsky’s theories. In chapter 3, of Lee, Smagorinsky, Creativity and Collaboration in Knowledge Construction, by Vera P. John-Steiner and Teresa M. Meehan, the social structures of learning are blended with the semiotics of the social world that come into the group with each individual learner. There are innumerable constructs, concepts and social tools that are brought to the community via its members. Upon this basis of pooled concepts the learning experience of each individual learner is founded, which is reminiscent of the botanical approach to child development that was the basis of Karl Stumpf‘s theories. (Vygotsky 19, 20) Stumpf was a German psychologist in the early 20th century. With a classroom of five-year-olds still being called (the child garden) kindergarten, there are some residual afterthoughts of Stumpf’s influential theories with us today.

John-Steiner and Meehan illustrate the need for connectedness within a human being even in its preverbal and physically dependant stages. They say that “only other human beings can create the special conditions needed for that development to occur.” “That development” being the requisite connections that begin between infant and caregiver and then continue to intertwine with each knew association, acquaintance and acquired concept or skill. The connection of these things is seen as a framework for further development by these authors, based on the works of Lev Vygotsky. All levels of intellectual development can find a basis here. From learning what the words “table” and “book” represent, to realizing that a book can be on a table, to the skill of placing the book on the table, to the analytical concept of whether or not a table can be on a book, and if that is logical. The conceptual list goes on.

In order for academic progress to occur the pedagogy must be learner-centered (Henson 6) where the incoming level of each learner has been evaluated and is considered, and progress from this point is assessed as a measure of learning, rather than a state-mandated set of educational norms. With the available resources and studies that can be evaluated and reevaluated, teachers have a panoply of encouraging data to use in keeping their classrooms vital and productive. Vygotsky is one of the greatest contributors, if not the greatest theorist of modern child and cognitive developmental methods.

The intricacy of Vygotsky's "incredible analytic ability" was considered unsurpassed and he was called a genius by A. R. Luria (Vygotsky) one of his students who took up the work of Vygotsky after his death. The theories unique to this man and which earned him the status of genius in the eyes of his students and contemporaries were never fully realized by the man himself, due to his death at only 38 years of age, barely into his own prime of life. (Vygotsky Introduction) Aware of his failing health, Vygotsky was forced to explain the bases of the intricate ideas that were developing in his own realm of understanding, trusting that the students he had worked with and trained, would succeed him and actualize his theoretical methods of teaching.

Studying Vygotsky's works and those written about him is a dense, intense and thought provoking process. He simplifies, while at the same time illustrating the complex intricacies of the stages of cognitive development. It would take years to fully absorb and understand the depth and breadth of his work. It is no wonder that many of his students took on his life's work as their own and spent their lifetimes testing, revising and proving his theories. He is among the most important of theorists or learning specialists who are available to be studied by those in the modern teaching profession.

As teachers, we should create an arena of optimal learning opportunities for students on every level of learning, to advance forward and use more tools as they become aware of them as we utilize Vygotsky’s educational building blocks to assist students in mastering concepts and skills that are within their reach. The focusing question should always be “What does this individual learner need from me, the teacher and from her interactive learning experience, which is at this time my responsibility?”

Using Vygotsky’s tools and techniques should bring success in classrooms on all levels of academia. Recognition and understanding of the ZPD, introduced by Vygotsky can allow for the validation of an individual’s creativity within the confines of each learning experience. Applying the I + 1 method of learning and recognizing the value of creative “play-time” if you will, or more impressively “experimentation” for the learner, can invigorate and reignite the usefulness of pedagogies and retain the joy of learning for the student within the arena of their classroom experience. The ZPD is situated upon the constantly reforming base of mastered concepts and is free from distraction of concepts that are still outside of the realm of consideration. It contains the valuable and palpable material for ongoing learning to continue in a robust and progressive continuum.

The learning process never ends. Learners who know how to self-apply Vygotskian methods to their lives will have rich and ongoing learning experiences. Teachers should insure that the time spent in their classroom is optimal for the short period of time that students will be there. If each student takes away at least one new learning tool from exposure to each teacher that uses these superior techniques, the world will become a smarter place for us all.



Works cited:

Crawford, Paul Duncan. "Educating for Moral Ability: reflections on moral development based on Vygotsky's theory of concept formation" Journal of Moral Education, Vol. 30, No 2, 2001. Print

Henson, Kenneth T. "Foundations for Learner-Centered Education: A Knowledge Base" Education; Fall2003, Vol. 124 Issue 1, p5-16, 12p. Print

Holy Bible, Book of Isaiah, ch. 28: v. 9 and 10. Print

Lee, Carol D. and Peter Smagorinsky. Vygotskian Perspectives on Literary Research, Cambridge Press 2005. Print

Vygotsky, L. S. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes, ed. Michael Cole, Vera John-Steiner, Sylvia Scribner, Ellen Souberman, Harvard University Press. 1978. Print