a) “My grandfather believed in reason above all else,…. There were terrible governments and wars because people used their wills in the wrong direction. He said were all wild children, the whole human race, and must be instructed in how to think,” (Fox, page 169). I like this phrase because of how factual it is in any time frame. Spock, the Vulcan side kick of Captain Kirk in Star Trek often referred to humans as illogical. I often find myself contemplating the reason why people do what they do. Why it is so important to allow oneself to be ruled by greed and selfishness.
We all grew up hearing of the golden rule, where there is a reciprocal relationship between one’s self and others that involves both sides equally and in a mutual fashion. Unfortunately, people are not logical (good old Spock was knowledgeable, beyond his many Vulcan years) and they require actual laws to instruct them how to behave and have consequences to their actions to have them comply. I spend hours contemplating and rationalizations people’s actions, and what occurred in their lives to make them the way they are.
In the novel “The God of Nightmares,” by Pamela Fox this phrase, to me, resonates what the bases of the book is. Every character, in some sort or another, acted in ways that reflects their using their will in the wrong direction. Violent acts, domestic violence, murder, sex, betrayal, and drunken stupors are to name a few. These characters acted if they had little conscious for what they were doing yet implied they were acting in a righteous manner.
Len took care of Aunt Lulu, yet we find out he had slept with her and lucky for him because others were around Aunt Lulu he had a few more notches he got to place on is belt. Even Helen’s rational for taking care of Aunt Lulu, I wonder if it had anything to do with her trying to get closer to Len. If Len was not there, I am curious if she would have continued to see her aunt. Nina, I think had sex with everyone and gave the illusion she was excepting of other plights and understanding because she was kind hearted. Which I wonder if she had an underlying cause… like what could she obtain from them.
Claude took Nina all over the place exposing her to new things not to mention free room and board, Dr. Sam took her to high end restaurants and hotels, and her moving in with Aunt Lulu I think was a chess move, to align herself with her exhusband Len and others. If we recall her had been watching the house for a while, Nina was an opportunist. It appears in New Orleans there was little in the way of reason and many people acted in wild and crazy ways… perhaps Gerald’s story would illuminate that phrase the best. b) Throughout the story “The God of Nightmares,” by Pamela Fox I see little evidence of ethos, but I do see logos. One example of logos is in regards of Gerald.
Gerald Boyd was a poet that awarded a prize for his work, which caused the people of the area to lash out at him, “This is the end of the country-not the delta, not those vile little settlements in that hellish swamp Gerald is so crazy about, even though some bastards who live there nearly killed him…… It’s what those savages in the bayou did to him. He won a prize for his poetry, a big sophisticated city prize, and of course the local newspaper wrote him up. Those bayou creatures got wind of it, word of mouth, I suppose, since I don’t believe for a second that they can read!
Those poems were about them. About their lives. Beautiful poems. And they took offense. What right did he have to write poems about them? They grabbed him one night. They held him on the ground and stuck a hoe into his poor bottom and blew air up him… He had a heart attack after that, because of what they did to him. His country folk friends. He wouldn’t tell the police who did it to him. Howard says he still sees him,” (Fox, page 72). Here we see the beginning of trying to establish reason and logic for what happened to Gerald.
By using logos, we are entering the minds of the people that hurt Gerald and try to justify their actions. Again we see this further in the book, “He made their lives his subject. He marked them out and made them seem different to themselves. Perhaps he made them aware they had selves… that some people don’t want to be different. For them, to be noticed at all, is to become monstrous, disgusting” (Fox, page 94). Sometimes when bad things happen we need to rationalize why it happened, in an attempt to make sense of it all.
It is almost as though, if we can understand the rationalization of the action it almost excuses the action. Gerald, in my mind, feels the same way in his statement, “They weren’t out to kill me. And I wasn’t innocent. I celebrate but they saw it as my using them. They didn’t have any idea about the harm they were going to do to me-that I was going to be so sick. It was a moonless night, so dark, and they’d been drinking a lot. You see, it might even have been a mistake… They could have thought I was else they had a grudge against.
Then, when they knew it was me thee in the dark, they could have recollected they’d heard something… that I’d told some secrets about them”, (Fox, page 157). In addition we see that others try to validate that same rationale, “and he’s still friends with them, still goes down there… that’s because he really understands them. That is why the poems have such tenderness. He knows what they’re capable of, yet he has enormous sympathy. How can sympathy be anything but cheap sentiment if you don’t know the dark side”, (Fox, page 95).
The use of logos is not used in one aspect of the story but placed throOugh the story to validate the reason and logic behind what was done to him, as if then it would make it okay. c) “Were people utterly unknown to themselves”, (Fox, page 71). I think one point Fox is trying to make through this story can be summed up in that one phrase. Throughout the story it appears the characters are unaware of their actions and how it plays into the outcomes, they are even oblivious to the actions of those around them. “Don’t pay much attention to what people say.
Then, someday, you’ll find out what you think yourself. Try to go to what is new as innocently as you can — let the surprise of it take you first,”(Fox, 37). What the reader can sense and what the characters of the story portray and different. For example I had an uncanny feeling that Nina and Len were lovers, the clues were there for the taking. In the end of the story when Helen finds out Len and Nina were lovers she is shocked and amazed. The innocents of her youth opened and the maturity of life allowed her to see what was had really occurred and how she played into it.
Hence supporting the fact that people are unknown to themselves. I once had to take a seminar about the inner self awareness. The speaker used a window and divided into four panes much like child draw, and stated our “selves” are like windows. In one pane is what I know and others know about me, the next what others know about me that I am unaware of, the next is what | know about myself that others do not and finally what I am aware about myself as well as others.
In order to truly grown in self-awareness we need to make the window that others know about us that we don’t know smaller and validate if it is indeed true or a perception we put out there. When I was reading The God of Nightmares, I realized that many of the characters have large panes in the areas of self-awareness and what we hide from others. I think Fox is trying to tell us that we need to be more aware, of our actions and those of others.
