A voice quenched, a voice heard

There's something to be said for clichés. Take 'chivalry is lost' for example. Its overuse might have stretched it to breaking point but it still holds true. It still has meaning. And by 'meaning' I am not referring to what the phrase alludes to nowadays: trivial, high-school conceptions on how gallantry is rare because somebody's boyfriend was caught cheating and other such empty-headed notions. No, what I mean is how chairs aren't vacated for standing females anymore, how 'after yous' just don't happen, how wolf whistles are getting shriller and how lugging arms aren't unburdened.

Some say feminism is to blame for this. When the movement first began, it was met by smirking men who were amused by the hysteria of such 'attention seeking women'. But is it any better now? The aloofness of before is present still, only in a different way. If they chuckled at our antics before, now they use our protests as a way to lie more comfortably in their chairs. Why should they help when women claim they can do it themselves? And certainly, you cant have it both ways. You cant have you cake and eat it too.

Another cliché that hasn't gone out of style

It becomes necessary to ask: What does feminism entail then? What are we to infer from it? Well, to take a broad view of the matter, to each his own. But for me, feminism isn't about hating men or viewing their help as an obvious form of disdain or seeking to establish female rule- for wouldn't replacing one oppression with another just result in a viscous cycle?

The main thing that it means to me is having our voices heard instead of quenched; making ourselves visible instead of crouching behind shadows. 

As much as I love Shakespeare, I have to ask what the hell he was thinking when he wrote:

“Her voice was ever soft,/ Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman” 

(5.3.274-275).

Id be the first to say that King Lear's two daughters were the ultimate evildoers of the play...but i'd give them this much: At least they were loud.  

The lens that you use to peer at the world? Change it

Up until this point in time, the suffragettes were just great. I mean, going on lengthy hunger strikes and hurling yourself in front of rampaging horse races in order to get your point across? They were the epitome of brilliance. But like most things in life, the wool eventually lifted and their shimmer faded down to a dismal grey.


History will tell you that the first wave of feminism conjured up dramatic images of suffragettes marching into the street and chaining themselves to railings out of an enraged protest to win women the vote. We all know how the story ends of course; full voting rights were eventually extended to women in 1920 and all was well. What this tale cleverly eludes to mention however is that although women did ultimately win the vote, they did not do it by marching together.

If you ask me, the Feminist movement didn’t encompass all women but sought out only a specific kind: White, well-educated women or in other words, haughty upper class females who were too high up on their horse to care for the other women they were leaving behind. From battling against patriarchy, the movement became an anti-racist struggle where there were many women, mostly those of color, who were excluded from a great deal of what is called ‘feminism’.

How great were the early feminists then in reality? If they inflicted other women with the same unfair domination that they accused men of? If they aspired to transfer hierarchies instead of abolishing them?

Sojourner Truth, an African American Women who was active during the suffragette period wrote the world famous speech, “Aint I a Woman?”

“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me nay best place! And ain’t I a woman! Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed, and planted and gathered into barns, and could no man help me? And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen them all sold into slavery, and when I cried out my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?”


One women lamenting from the margins.
A shout, a whisper…one last croak
A sudden horde
Then silence


Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was another African American woman who campaigned during the woman’s suffrage and experienced first hand the prevalence of racism during the movement. 1913, Chicago: while marching for woman suffrage, she was asked by the American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) to withdraw her participation because several other women had taken offence at the spectacle of a Black woman campaigning alongside whites and had threatened to withdraw their own involvement.

And so that was that.

Its funny how something that you admired before brings you nothing but disgust now. Jumping in front of a barreling horse race doesn’t sound like bravery to me anymore.

In fact, it just seems like the sign of unequivocal insanity.

Shakespear's characterization of Goneril and Regan In King Lear

"If that the heavens do not their visible spirits send quickly down to tame these vilde offences,

It will come

Humanity must perforce prey on itself,

Like monsters of the deep"

[Act 4, Scene 2]

The monstrosity of Goneril and Regan's character is core to the play King Lear. It becomes, as prophesized by other characters, the catalyst for the protagonists tragic downfall and ultimately, also their own. Both sisters typify what is wrong with humanity.

The vehemence of Albany's claims against Goneril's nature is somewhat surprising and unexpected of his character since previously, he had only expressed a mere remonstration to his wife concerning the savage way in which she treated the king- “How far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell; striving to better, oft we mar what’s well”. Now however, he is greatly incensed by his wife’s brutality and this abrupt change in his view of Goneril is significant of the sheer cruelty of her nature; Albany is now willing to see beyond the bond of their marital relationship- a fact that has formerly restrained his better judgment- and openly express his derogatory opinion. Albany uses the analogy of inhumanity- “monsters”- to emphasize the deformity and brutality of Goneril’s nature and this image is also built upon by another instance in the play. One of the Duke of Cornwall’s servants professes his disgust for Regan and her involvement in Gloucester’s savage blinding by saying:

“If she live long
And in th end meet the old course of death
Women will all turn monsters”

Thus, by suggesting, as did Albany, that is no visible means of divine retribution appears to punish evil, then all of humanity will be encouraged to imitate her “monstrous” ways. The tragedy of both these prophecies is that they are suggestive of a state where there will be no external agent directly punishing the evil deeds of Goneril and Regan. This lack of divine intervention seems to be core to Shakespeare’s intention in writing King Lear, throwing the beast-like characters of Goneril and Regan into greater relief, because then evil goes unrestrained. Albany’s statement of “that the heavens do not their visible spirits send quickly” underlines this aspect, and the image is further built upon by King lear himself. In his state of despair and antagonization by the betrayal of his daughters, Lear constructs a make-believe “trial” of Goneril and Regan, condemning them with charges of treachery. But he imagines that Goneril and Regan manage to escape unscathed and unpunished of their horrible acts: “False Justicer, why hast thou let her’scape?” It is unnerving how the ‘false justicer’ is imagined by Lear to be unmoved by the treacherous deeds of humans and this further heightens the brutal natures of Goneril and Regan.

Albany anticipates that in the case of no heavenly retribution, a means of punishment will instead be humans devouring each other. This image of cannibalism is disturbing, but it adds to Goneril and Regan’s ruthlessness. Basically this suggests that self destruction will be the punishment; as if evil has inherently the seeds of its own downfall. In the instance of their malicious behavior towards their father, Lear deems them “unnatural hags” and it is a mark of their nature how they remain absolutely unaffected by his accusation. Even Albany proclaims that he “fears [Goneril’s] disposition” and names his wife “most barbarous, most degenerate”, Goneril appears indifferent and merely repeats her charges of cowardice to her husband. This indicates a state of evil so deeply rooted that it is beyond redemption of any kind and the constant comparison of Gineril and Regan to wild beasts- “wicked creature, boarish fangs”- is again indicative of their savage characters.

Albany’s use of the word “deep” is repeated by Gloucester when, in his blinded and helpless state, he plans to commit suicide by the edge of a cliff: “looks fearfully in the confined deep”. This image of underground, which is commonly believed by mythology to breed creatures of death and darkness, occurs twice in the play in simultaneous scenes. This could be suggestive of Goneril and Regan being inhuman, deformed creatures that dwell in the darkness and are associated with images of beasts and spirits.

The prophecy made by Albany ultimately becomes fulfilled as Goneril and Regan do indeed become agents of their own destruction. Formerly united with their common greed and hostility against the King, it is their own insatiable lust for worldly pleasures which turns them against each other. The death of her husband brings Regan no grief; on the contrary, she sees it as a clearer path to obtaining what she desires. As prophesized however, this monstrous greed was what contained the seeds of its own destruction and the prediction materializes in the form of Goneril poising Regan and then ultimately taking her own life as well.

The Mist

As it turns out, the movie "The Mist" isnt your average nonsensical gore fest. Sure, there are enough dead bodies to elicit approval from the guffawing male variety but all that aside, it gave me a much needed epiphany.


So in the movie, everything’s cool until this unworldly mist suddenly invades a town and the people are forced to take refuge inside a grocery store. The turning point in the movie occurs when the people realize that this is no ordinary mist; it’s a completely alien entity. All meaning is thrown into disarray as the people literally run rampant because the mist is something that they had never imagined to exist before. This fear and confusion is depicted in the way one woman screams, “I saw creatures tonight which shouldn’t exist”. This alone distills the essence of the movie. It shows what happens to people when they’re confronted with something so frighteningly foreign.

When we wake up in the morning, things make sense because they’re exactly the way we left them the night before; We go to school, we go to work, we smile at familiar faces, we walk under a sky that’s still blue with people we still like but what will happen when one day the sun rises from the west instead of the east? When everything structured and familiar in our life turns upside down? In the movie, people start yearning for absolutely any form of leadership which will help them make sense of their chaos; they are drawn to a man who deems the mist as nothing more than a farce and they look up to a woman who parallels the mist with some divine intervention sent down to punish them all.


“(We are civil) as long as the machines are working and you can dial 911. But you take those things away, you throw people in the dark, you scare the shit out of them - no more rules”


Without leadership, without common sense, we become little more than beasts skulking around in an anarchical society. Watching this concept in the movie, I was strongly reminded of King Lear. One of the centre pieces of King Lear is a grim metaphysical contention that at his most basic level, man is unadapted to the world he lives in and is, in fact, almost an alien entity in nature. The ultimate thesis of the play is that human beings are some kind of evolutionary error who, when bare of civilized coverings, can be regarded as repulsive misfits.


“Is man no more than this? Thou art the thing itself; unaccomadated man is no more than the poor bare forked animal that thou art”


We see illustrations of this splattered all over the daily news. What did the flood bring with it? Amid convulsing waves of water, it brought the element of self-preservation which now flows through people’s veins instead of blood. While donating, we wonder how much will actually reach the victims and how much will be used to ‘polish the fat man’s silver’.


Because the worst of times brings out the worst in us.

Her new world

 It was the gentle breeze that wafted between unfurling tulips that whispered her awake. She opened her eyes to a sky the color of watered ink and to an earth painted emerald. The sun beamed down in broad golden shafts but the idea of needing to shield her eyes against the glare was laughable: indeed, it was with barely controlled eagerness that she turned to gaze, wide-eyed, at the sphere of molten gold that emblazoned the sky and filtered through outstretched branches and stems, bathing the world, and she, in a mist of shimmering hue. And tears came before she could stop them, sliding down her face one after the other, because really, when was the last time the sun had shone this way? When was the last time she had seen such exquisite, such splendid beauty? It was glorious, glorious and yet it was also so remarkably ordinary, so very normal a sight. Didn’t it, after all, happen everyday?  But as she lay curled on the grass with her forehead between her knees and her hair spread out on the ground, she felt that the sun had never lit the sky, had never blazed as fiercely, had never blazed at all, in fact, the way it did now.

She rose, barely acknowledging the sleeping form beside her. She felt light; as if today she could spread her arms and soar with the wind if she wanted. She could bound over the grass and let her feet skim the sun-baked pebbles that lay strewn. She could break into a sprint and think what bliss, what joy is was to run, simply run, under this cloudless sky in which glimmered the sun, her first sun. For she now knew, with a finality that was absolute, that the creature next to her would never stir to life again. She knew the way a planted seed knows to grow and a bird knows to croon, that she was free. The vines strapped around her ankles had unwound, leaving her tied to nothing and bound to no one.  The rumpled mass that lay beside her was still. It was for only a moment that she hesitated before reaching out to cautiously nudge the unmoving shape. Its skin felt raw and coarse under her finger. Her eyes moved slowly over its distorted features, taking in the small, stunted frame, the withered mouth, the identical gashes that pierced its scaly hide. The girl recoiled from the maimed creature and silently reminded herself that what had breathed life into this creature’s wasted body had left. It had gone. She would never again hear that terrible rasping voice or feel its glittering black eyes narrowed malevolently at her. She closed her eyes and waited for the image of the creature to swim before her eyes, but none came. She waited longer, but the memory had disappeared. Her eyes flew open. She breathed. She must leave the creature here. It was dead. She had fought it out of her.  

The girl’s surroundings quivered in front of her eyes and then vanished; memory after memory began to dart through her mind like a flickering film so vivid it blinded her. There she was, crouched in a corner, ragged and unkept, screaming as if her lungs were on fire. The image faded and another one came into view; she was kneeling alone in her room, tears coursing down her grimy skin so that her face became a criss-crossed map of tangled hair and dirt streaked clean..she was fourteen and turning her head away as she passed the mirror..fifteen, and her wrists bore countless scarlet stripes.

She drew in a sharp intake of breath and her surroundings came back into view. The horizon beckoned, whispered promises of better tomorrows. This new world glistened in celebration and a warm breeze caressed her face. She breathed. The creature was dead. She breathed again. Laughter bubbled in her throat and rang unfamiliar to her ears; she had forgotten the sound. Tentatively, she placed one leg infront of the other and took a small step. Then another. Then before she knew it, she was running, running through the tall grass, her legs moving so fast that they barely seemed to be moving at all. On she flew. A part of her registered that it felt exactly how she had imagined it would as she breathed and ran, breathed and ran 

Spin, Wheel of Fortune

There are plenty of things wrong with the human race. Stripped of our cultural trappings and cushioned seats, what are we really? When its dusk after dusk with no dawn in between, what do we become? When the music dies down and the dance floor is empty, we shrivel; we turn our heads as we pass the mirror. To distill the essence of my rant into one phrase, we are ugly.
The newspapers of today aren’t black and white anymore, they are red. Stained with the blood of the murdered and the remorse of the bereaved. The city of lights, the city that glistens scarlet.

A  tendency core to mankind and the ultimate catalyst for its downfall is perhaps ignorance. We just don’t get it. What goes around will most certainly come around and choke you to death. These days however, we kick up some dust while we can and to hell with karma. Take people in power for example: they’re skipping around thinking life is a ball, all the while quite oblivious to the giant churning doom known as the Wheel of Fortune. Politics everywhere is united with its common affliction to this spherical form of fate; kings rise and fall, noble titles grow faint, mighty empires crumble. We are all caught in this whirlpool of political delusions which fluctuate around us and yet we are blind to it. We can’t see that power doesn’t last; politics is a viscous circle which will elevate you to the stars and then drop you to the bottom. But power is also a drug- once tasted, it can replace your blood until all that you comprehend is wanting more, more, more. We can see this illustrated in our red newspapers. Strapped to this cyclic image, humans suffer and endure, prosper and decline. Up and down, round and round until our very existence can be envisaged as a carousel spinning round and round until the end of time.

 What is the lethal flux? Aspiration; the wheel spins; riches and treasures; the wheel spins; the music stops, humanity is lost; one last spin; and the city is screaming.  
But still we do it. Still we do it.