Research Papers / References for a research paper on Virginia Woolf's A Mark on the Wall [2]

I'm supposed to write a research paper for my Women's Lit class on any text written by a woman, and I chose Woolf's short essay A Mark on the Wall before looking into how many critiques of it were out there, and I'm not finding much. I've searched all the article databases on my library website (JSTOR and Litfinder have been the most helpful), but I'm wondering if there's a secret (free) online database I don't know about.

If anyone has any thoughts, let me know.

Thanks.

Writing Feedback / Virginia Woolf's "A Mark on the Wall" [NEW]

Hello,

I'm writing this paper for my online Women's Lit class. I actually handed it in over a week ago thinking it was the final draft, but the professor just returned the papers and told us the final draft is due in three days (and she didn't give any comments, which is annoying). I can't find anything to change because I was satisfied with it when I handed it in, but I'm sure there's a lot that can be revised.

Thanks for reading!

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"The Mark on the Wall" as an Analysis of Human Thought

While most works of fiction follow a prescribed plot, exploring each idea on a chronological path, Virginia Woolf's "The Mark on the Wall" articulates, instead of action, an internal monologue. Human thought is not linear; in moments of introspection we jump from topic to topic, follow connections ignited by memory, logic or external input. Some critics call this essay a work of fancy, while others consider it a demonstration of control. The question of whether it is a work of subjectivism or skepticism is also a prominent debate. I prefer to view "The Mark on the Wall" as an analysis of the patterns of human thought - including both subjectivist thought and skepticist thought - distinguishing the chaos of introspection from organized writing.

The thought process Woolf explores with "The Mark on the Wall" can be likened to the act of asking a person question after question in immediate succession, not allowing time for the person to contemplate how to phrase his or her response. The narrative begins with a statement so uncertain it may as well have been phrased as a question: "Perhaps it was the middle of January in the present that I first looked up and saw the mark on the wall." If this sentence is the question, the following is the answer: "In order to fix a date it is necessary to remember what one saw."(2424) This sentence then becomes a question, and the process goes on throughout the story. She remembers that she saw fire, was reading a book, that it was winter, after tea, that she had been smoking a cigarette, and she remembers thinking of a castle flag and red knights. The mark on the wall plays the role of an interruption to this train of thought: "Rather to my relief the sight of the mark interrupted the fancy, for it is an old fancy, an automatic fancy, made as a child perhaps."(2424) This relief is an effect of changing to a new tangent during an internal monologue, and changes in tangent are abundant in this work.

To Natania Rosenfeld, "The Mark on the Wall" is "essential to an understanding of modernist subjectivism." Subjectivism holds that all knowledge depends on the sensory perception of the self. The narrator's free-association, in Rosenfeld's eyes, feeds into this "subjectivism," because it is a reaction against imposed structure:

"To attach one's eye to a small spot and let the mind wander is to free oneself of what Bal calls "doxa," official interpretations that hide truth or stunt imagination; Woolf's story contains numerous examples of such doxa, beginning, paradoxically, with "that old fancy"-paradoxically because fancy, in the sense of whimsicality, is precisely what the story would seem to endorse."

"Fancy" is connected to capriciousness and imagination. This word is too weak and light to explain what the story endorses; it certainly expresses capriciousness, but it is more than a simple daydream. The truths realized in the narrator's reverie are not frivolous "fluff" thoughts used to take up time in idle moments. If this story is truly a work of subjectivism, the narrator's thoughts on knowledge are of utmost importance:

"And what is knowledge? What are our learned men save the descendants of witches and hermits who crouched in caves and in woods brewing herbs, interrogating shrew-mice and writing down the language of the stars? And the less we honour them as our superstitions dwindle and our respect for beauty and health of mind increases... Yes, one could imagine a very pleasant world."(2428)

"Learned men," to the narrator, are merely people who have recorded their experiences. She concludes that if we waste less of our own mental energy thinking about what they saw as "knowledge," the more we can understand our own minds. If not for the narrator's later leaning toward skepticism, which I will soon discuss, this emphasis on her own personal knowledge over knowledge which is accepted by others would define "The Mark on the Wall" as a work of subjectivism. This highlighting of human thought encourages the reader to examine the way the narrator's mind works, following her patterns and noticing changes in direction of attention, as well as the role of reflection in the patterns of the internal monologue.

Another example of a "doxa" that the narrator follows (until she ends that train of thought by looking at the mark) begins with a discussion of tablecloths: She explains the rule for how tablecloths had to be made during a time in the past, which leads into thoughts on reality, followed by the masculine standard of the times, and then a mention of the war and a hope that it will be "laughed into the dustbin where phantoms go," leading to "an intoxicating sense of illegitamite freedom - if freedom exists..."(2427) The narrator trails off here and "attaches" her eye to the mark and lets her mind "wander," free of the doxa that had overpowered her thoughts before she had interrupted them by looking at the mark.

But is the train of thought I described in the previous paragraph truly a "doxa"? It begins with one, the established idea of how tablecloths should be made, but the mind is relieved from the doxa long before it focuses on the mark on the wall. It is not clear whether or not the narrator is looking at the mark on the wall when she escapes from her doxa, although Rosenfeld presents the mark as the only way to stop the mind from pursuing a doxa.

The tablecloths to reality to masculinity to war to freedom train of thought exemplifies what Rosenfeld calls "the Woolfian mode of observation":"The Woolfian mode of observation is a form of inattentive attention that allows the unorthodox and the seemingly incidental to occupy center stage in the mind long enough to un-do certainties about the way the world works or what one "should" believe, but not long enough to harden into new doxa."(Rosenfeld, 353) Taking the narrator's thoughts on reality as an example, (the discovery that "real" things "were not entirely real," wondering what replaces "those real, standard things"(2427) we can see that these thoughts are, indeed, "unorthodox," and if brought up in everyday conversation they would likely be brushed aside as "seemingly incidental," and they clearly question "certainties" and standard rules of thought, but do not form an official doxa.

The one part of the Woolfian mode of observation that does not seem to fit completely in this instance is the awkwardly phrased "inattentive attention." I would argue that the narrator is paying utmost attention to her thoughts and nothing else, aside from the mark on the wall. Dorothy Mackenzie Hoare describes the process in a similar manner, but does not call it "inattentive":

Fix the object (which is here used as a bright flashing thing is used in some hypnotic experiments, and for the same effect-to enable the mind, while having an outward focus of attention, to retreat into the subconscious stream) and let the mind sway round all the associations it brings with the freedom and suppleness of a gymnast. It implies a very delicate balancing of attention-on the one hand sensitiveness to the subconscious free movement of thought or emotion, and on the other, a continual intellectual control.

Attention is simply the direction of thought; one cannot "balance" one's attention inattentively. The idea of letting the mind "sway" may at first seem "inattentive," but the attention in this story is constantly being parceled out, allocated to certain thoughts in a carefully tended manner. Consider the following passage:

Everybody follows somebody, such is the philosophy of Whitaker; and the great thing is to know who follows whom. Whitaker knows, and let that, so Nature counsels, comfort you, instead of enraging you; and if you can't be comforted, if you must shatter this hour of peace, think of the mark on the wall. I understand Nature's game-her prompting to take action as a way of ending any thought that threatens to excite or to pain. Hence, I suppose, comes our slight contempt for men of action-men, we assume, who don't think. Still, there's no harm in putting a full stop to one's disagreeable thoughts by looking at a mark on the wall.(2428)

Hinting that she is paying more attention to the order of her thoughts than it may seem at first glance, the narrator mentions knowing "who follows whom." While the jumping from idea to idea may not be planned, it does not occur without the thinker's attention. The "sensitiveness" to the order of thoughts connects to the "contempt" for those "we assume, who don't think," while the narrator proves her "intellectual control" by halting unpleasant thought trains by focusing her attention on the mark. This is one example of Woolf's analysis of human thought: using the narrator as a model, Woolf performs an investigation into human beings' control over their own thoughts - the ability to stop them or take action because of them.

The line between subjectivism and skepticism is hazy, the first claiming that knowledge rests on the individual mind and the second declaring that absolute knowledge is altogether impossible. "The sceptical, relative spirit is a countervailing force, subverting and undoing all frameworks set up by the filing system of the human mind. It releases the facts from their subservience to general principles to which they have been yoked by the absolute spirit. In undercutting all normative ordering, it highlights open-endedness." The most obvious example of skepticism in "The Mark on the Wall" follows the tirade about the Colonel gathering evidence that ends "proving I don't know what." This thought triggers the question of whether knowledge is possible at all: "No, no, nothing is proved, nothing is known. And if I were to get up at this very moment and ascertain that the mark on the wall is really - what shall we say? - the head of a gigantic old nail, driven in two hundred years ago... what should I gain? Knowledge? Matter for further speculation?"(2428) The final three inquiries are of utmost importance in distinguishing this work as one of subjectivism or one of skepticism: if the narrator's goal during this sequence of thoughts is to arrive at knowledge, then subjectivism rules the text; if knowledge is not possible and her aim is speculation, then the narrator is following the rules of skepticism. Because a conclusion on this subject is not reached, the line between skepticism and subjectivism remains blurry throughout the story.

"The Mark on the Wall" concludes with the narrator's discovery that the mark on the wall was a snail. This realization ends the story, but it can be assumed that the narrator's internal monologue does not end here - rather, the story proves that internal monologues persist through our waking lives, only interrupted by action. The narrator explains to us that interruptions are part of human thought patterns: "Here is Nature, once more at her old game of self-preservation. This train of thought, she perceives, is threatening mere waste of energy, even some collision with reality..."(2428) The final "collision with reality" comes with the story's last sentence. This aspect of human thought, along with doxa, order of thoughts, and reflection, are Woolf's observations on how the mind works in solitude.

Works Cited

1) Woolf, Virginia. "The Mark on the Wall". Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 2424-2429.
2) Rosenfeld, Natania. "Less Light: The End(s) of Aestheticism in Pater, Ondaatje, and Sebald." Modernism/Modernity. 13.2. 2006. 349-366.
3) Hoare, Dorothy Mackenzie. Some Studies in the Modern Novel. London: Chatto and Windus, 1938. 36.
4) Iser, Wolfgang. Walter Pater: The Aesthetic Moment. transl. David Henry Wilson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. 17.

Writing Feedback / "The Waste Land" as a Manifestation of Dream Content [4]

I've been tweaking this essay for a while now and it just doesn't want to make sense... that was a ridiculous statement, it's my fault, not the essay's, if it doesn't make sense. I know it needs to be reorganized but I'm not sure where to go from here. Any comments or criticisms of any kind are greatly appreciated.

The footnotes didn't copy over from word, so if you want to know more about my citations let me know
Thanks!
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Proclaimed by many critics as Modernist poetry's great paradigmatic work, The Waste Land (1922) exemplifies what T. S. Eliot calls "the mythical method," a process of structure that connects parallel symbols and images from literary history with present-day symbols and images. The disjunction between one moment and the next, as well as between seemingly random images, is akin to the mental state during a dream as described by the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams. Because readers cannot rely on time to map out the poem's order for them, they must find order in Eliot's complex imagery, which consists of allusions to historical texts and of ambiguous symbols much like those found in dreams. A Freudian perspective brings the reader an understanding of its meaning that agrees with its dream-like organization and concepts.

The poem's language does not coincide with the functions of the human brain in its conscious state; according to Freud, the unconscious thoughts expressed in our dreams possess a language of their own, "The dream-thoughts and the dream-content present themselves as two descriptions of the same content in two different languages; or, to put it more clearly, the dream-content appears to us as a translation of the dream-thoughts into another mode of expression." For the purpose of a Freudian interpretation of The Waste Land , "dream-content" refers to the text of the poem as Eliot presents it to the reader (including his extensive notes), and "dream-thoughts" are the original ideas and narrative concepts behind the language that Eliot uses to obscure them.

Throughout the poem, the concepts of fertility and vitality are manifested as symbols of vegetation and moisture: "And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief / And the dry stone no sound of water."(23-24) Approaching these visual images with Freud's concept of displacement in mind, the reader must form psychological connections between elements of the poem by attaching the same meaning found in other elements. "Breeding" is paralleled with "rain" at the beginning of the poem, so the "dry stone with no sound of water" represents a state of infertility that shows no signs of restoration. The poem's theme of regeneration can only be perceived if the abstract connotations of the first stanza are repeatedly applied to concrete images.

The organization of the poem into five seasons, beginning and ending with Spring, alludes to the cyclical nature of fertility. However, each of the many scenes depicted in each section takes place in its own detached place in time, and there is no implication that the events of the abrupt narratives have any causal effect on each other. The Summer section makes no mention of the tarot reading and street encounter of the first Spring section, nor do its events unfold sequentially: one moment the narrator is being asked question after question by an unnamed woman, and without so much as a word to signify a narrative transition the dialogue switches to one between the narrator and Lil. In the final lines of the section the speaker is no longer talking to Lil but saying goodnight to Bill, Lou and May, and the verse concludes with the voice of Hamlet's Ophelia. The poem's structure does not build toward a climax, nor does the narrator take a moment to reflect upon the preceding action. The fact that time does not perform its developmental purpose parallels the idea of a malfunctioning fertility cycle.

Ruth Nevo declares in "The Waste Land: Ur-Text of Deconstruction" that no reader can possibly "differentiate a subject in the sense of an overall subject matter, or argument, or myth, or theme for the poem to be unequivocally about or to embody." This critics's needless search for traditional narrative structure prevents her from noticing Eliot's fundamental theme: fertility, or, rather, the lack thereof. The novel is "unequivocally about" several ideas, but the most poem's central premise is a society which has lost the ability to reproduce. This theme is introduced in the very first line, with the word "breeding": "April is the cruelest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land..."(1-2) April traditionally takes on cheerful and youthful characteristics, but here it is the object of scorn for the speaker (whose identity shifts throughout the poem). April is "cruel" because it is capable of regeneration, while humans, in the speaker's society, have been afflicted with infertility.

That April symbolizes cruelty and occurs during a time of "dead land" is non-traditional imagery, but that doesn't mean it completely lacks symbolism. Nevo states that the poem's symbols do not perform the "functions" of foci:

"They refuse to symbolize. They explode and proliferate. They turn themselves inside out, diffuse their meanings, and collapse back again into disarticulated images... Is water, or the sea, death or life? Is fire a lust of the flesh or a purity of the spirit?... Or are these possibilities in unceasing dialectical interchange; idea and image, essence and existence, appearance and reality?... there is a language which this mode of phantasmagoria resembles, the language of the unconscious, with its condensations, substitutions, displacements, and [if we] are then challenged to find an interpretive key to this dream, we cannot.(456)"

Upon closer inspection, Nevo would probably discover that the symbols do, in fact, perform their functions, if they are translated from her astute identification of the poem's language as that of the unconscious. Her suggestion that the poem relies on the process of inverting established dichotomies encourages an approach to the poem as to a sequence of five dreams, each comprised of a disjointed story-like experience and seemingly incoherent images. This critique characterizes the poem as incoherent and lacking reason, which are two aspects Freud identifies in our unconscious experiences: "There are no dreams which are absolutely reasonable which do not contain some incoherence, some absurdity," declares Freud. The Waste Land's unreasonable organization and incoherence support the idea that the poem is written in the language of dreams, in which case Nevo's list of absent literary characteristics holds true, except in her declaration that the poem lacks a subject. The poem's language does not coincide with the functions of the human brain in its conscious state; according to Freud, the unconscious thoughts expressed in our dreams possess a language of their own: "The dream-thoughts and the dream-content present themselves as two descriptions of the same content in two different languages; or, to put it more clearly, the dream-content appears to us as a translation of the dream-thoughts into another mode of expression."

It is important to remember that symbols and metaphors, in texts as well as dreams, are subjective entities. As a dream interpreter, the reader of this poem must make use of subjectivity; although Freud's definitions of dream symbols are widely accepted, his approach to interpretation is not the only, or even most popular, method of analysis. A great deal of Freud's writing about dreams has proven useful in understanding The Waste Land, such as the interaction between dream-thought and dream-content and his ideas about unconscious temporality; for the purpose of interpreting specific symbols, however, the reader should rely on his or her personal, subjective construal of meaning, even if the result is an uncommon interpretation.

The following lines contain images that Nevo would refuse to accept as interpretable. "And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, / And the dry stone no sound of water..."(23-24) This passage presents the two kinds of symbols as identified in dream analysis: The more scarcely used conventional metaphor, and the personal symbol that one's mind has adapted through memory - such as Eliot's repertoire of literary history. The tree as a source of shelter is an image that speaks to the reader's common sense, while the cricket that gives no relief is an allusion to the Holy Bible (Ecclesiastes XII), a connection that the reader can only make through experience. With no access to Eliot's memories (Freud helped patients decode their dream-images by asking them questions that led to connections not intrinsic in the dream-thoughts), readers must turn to the poem's detailed notes about historical and personal allusions that are found in the dream-content. For example, a dry stone with could symbolize many things, and no interpretation is "wrong," but only one exposes the concealed dream-thought. Dryness can imply physical discomfort or lack of emotion, stones are, to some, synonymous with lazy people, and to others with unmovable obstacles. Readers who have picked up on the theme of breeding from the opening line can use this theme as a hint as to where to follow the metaphor; "dry" often means "barren," and water clearly symbolizes vitality, or, for this poem's purpose, fertility.

This lack of order can be explained by relating its organization to the similar disorder in the forms and concepts of dreams; in the words of Freud, "The dream is psychic anarchy, emotional and intellectual, the playing of functions, freed of themselves and performing without control and without end." As in a dream, a sense of jumbled eternity accompanies the reading of The Waste Land. By making frequent allusions to literary texts from various times and cultures, Eliot conveys the unity and ever-lastingness of the written word, and the simultaneous experience of emotional extremes expressed by the narrator resembles a state of "psychic anarchy." For example, the speaker describes himself weeping next to the river, and then, implying that he is overcome by a passion that cannot be extinguished, he repeats the words "Burn burn burn burn," a reference to a Buddhist sermon that depicts humanity consumed by intense emotion. Water is commonly interpreted as emotion in dream analysis, which sets up the dichotomy of fire and water in reference to emotion. At first glance, the poem reads as a nonsensical jumble of ideas, but it is actually the result of a carefully planned formulation of meaning. This formulation takes shape in Eliot's mythical method, in addition to what Cleanth Brooks calls "the principle of complexity."

"The basic method used in The Waste Land may be described as the application of the principle of complexity. The poet works in terms of surface parallelisms which in reality make ironical contrasts, and in terms of surface contrasts which in reality constitute parallelisms... The two aspects taken together give the effect of chaotic experience ordered into a new whole, though the realistic surface of experience is faithfully retained. The complexity of the experience is not violated by the apparent forcing upon it of a predetermined scheme."

Although nearly everything in The Waste Land rejects the idea of "the realistic surface of experience," parallelisms which take effect as contrasts and contrasts which function as parallelisms are abundant in this work. Written in the language of parallelism, the following passage expresses a dichotomy, not equality: "And I will show you something different from either / Your shadow at morning striding behind you / Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you..."(27-29) This is one of the many lines in the poem that contribute to its "chaotic experience," while Eliot's organizing of the poem into the cycle of the seasons is its forced "predetermined scheme." Such dichotomies are expressed symbolically with the juxtaposition of traditional metaphors and what would traditionally be classified as illogical imagery. For example, one line gives winter characteristics contrary to those people generally associate with winter: "Winter kept us warm"(5), and follows this obscure statement with the image of "forgetful snow"(6), which is a more easily understood illustration.

Perhaps the most clear and reasonable expression of the similarities between The Waste Land and Freud's "dream-content" can be found in a journal article by Sukhbur Singh:

"Concealed correlations among different scenes, situations, events, incidents, symbols, images, phrases, and words... are often directly or indirectly interrelated with others in the preceding and the succeeding parts of the text. ... These hidden connections create a structural complexity and thematic ambiguity, which together generate multiple layers of meaning and promote unlimited possibilities of new interpretations. Eliot invites the reader to order the "fragments" he has "shored" against his "ruin" into a "coherent whole"... to 'connect nothing with nothing,' creating the poetics of the waste that guides them to the resolution of the human predicament in the modern world through Give, Sympathize, and Control."

This description explanation exposes the poem's meaning-inhibiting images and the language that forms them into a new text passage describing the same psychological aspect that Freud uses in The Interpretation of Dreams, but uses different wording; it is not clear whether Singh is translating the words of Freud into a new language or if he came up with the idea on his own, but the phrases parallel each other so distinctly that an awareness of Freud's concept of dream formation is suggested in Singh's critique. The statement ends with two of the poem's most resonating lines: "connect nothing with nothing," and "Give, Sympathize and Control." Singh's emphasis of the first concept that is adamantly anti-Freudian, and the second is a call for control over the interpretation of the text. This control lies in understanding the displacement inherent in the workings of the unconscious mind, as well as in the mind of the reader of poetry.

The only "interpretive key" we have for the reading of The Wasteland is Eliot's command, "Give, Sympathize and Control." Everything we need to know about hidden imagery lies inside our minds, and knowing how to "control" one's own translation of dream-thoughts and dream-content is also imperative to a reading of The Waste Land. It reads like a series of entries in a dream journal, which at first appear to the waking dreamer as a nonsensical jumble of images and ideas. The careful planning that Eliot used to design his mythical method takes the place of the intricate workings of the unconscious mind. The reader can participate in the mythical method by turning to outside sources, such as Freud and other dream analysts, to find themes like fertility in a text many have labeled "uninterpretable."

Writing Feedback / Social Identity assignment [2]

This is my first assignment in my Master's in Education program... We're supposed to write an essay about our social identity, and didn't get much more instruction than that, except that we'll be reading it to the rest of the class. Let me know what you think... sorry if it's boring.

Labels and Comparisons: My Social Identity

In order to explore our identities regarding class, race, gender, religion, and other aspects of human life, we must look at the ideas that make up social identity. Social identity consists of four elements: Categorization, or attaching labels to people; Identification, which refers to associating oneself to certain groups; Comparison, or viewing other groups differently from our own; and Psychological Distinctiveness - we each want to be different from other groups.

Allow me to categorize myself. I am a "white female" of European descent. I am a "Massachusetts resident."I am a"Green Party member."I am a"graduate student."I am a "Unitarian Universalist."I am a"poor person,"but my parents are"rich people."What do these labels say about me? Can people make assumptions about my beliefs if I tell them I am a white female? When someone hears me called a"poor person,"what will they assume about my upbringing and employment situation? As for Identification, I associate myself with several groups, including the Green Party, the Unitarian Universalist Association, and the State Radio fan club. The assumptions I make about people who, for example, are members of the Republican Party, fall under the category of Comparison. I have found that I tend to focus on Comparison more than Psychological Distinctiveness. My economic situation as a child and teenager shows that I put a great deal of energy into comparing myself to other groups and people with different labels.

I grew up in a white, affluent family in the suburbs of Boston. As children my sisters and I used to play a game called "Rich Girl," in which we pretended our dad had a "good job" and we could buy whatever we wanted. We didn't know it, but we were "rich girls." As I grew older I developed an increasing sense of guilt regarding my class. My schools were always well-funded, and 15 miles away in Boston kids my age were being treated very poorly. In the same way, I felt guilty for reaping the benefits of my white skin while black people and other minorities had to deal with discrimination on a daily basis.

My current economic situation is different, but not as different as I thought it would be. For the two years before I started the Bridges program I worked a minimum wage job at a movie theater, and was living below poverty level in a studio apartment with my boyfriend. But I didn't live like a poor person; I have always had my family to support me financially. For example, my high school graduation present from my parents was the family minivan, and when it broke down a few months ago my grandmother gave me 5,000 dollars to buy a new one. When my computer broke around the same time, my dad bought me one for my birthday. My parents are paying my rent while I'm in school this year.

How does my wealthy family affect my social identity? The situation puts me in something of a no-man's-land of class. I am poor, but I don't live like poor people who don't have people giving them money whenever they need it. So am I rich? This is the most confusing part of my social identity for me. Outside of class, I have a firm grasp on what makes up my social identity.

I was raised as a Unitarian Universalist, a religion that doesn't tell members what to believe but encourages them to embark upon, as one of the religion's principles reads, "a free and responsible search for truth and meaning." This part of my social identity is very strong; although I don't go to church anymore, I find comfort in the Unitarian Universalist outlook. In eighth grade each member of my youth group made a speech during service about what we believed. My speech discussed my choice to consider myself an Agnostic, because I know there are important questions that human beings need to think about, but I don't necessarily believe that we can answer those questions in this life, and that that's okay.

I took a major step toward Psychological Distinctiveness in 2004, when I voted for David Cobb, the Green Party presidential candidate, instead of John Kerry, the Democratic candidate. I knew Kerry would win the electoral votes in Massachusetts, so I felt that I was in a unique situation to support the Green Party, unlike people in other categories like West Virginians. Over the past few years my identity as a Green Party member has grown stronger; this is probably because I have been away from my parents, who are Democrats. When I was a child I called myself a Democrat because that's what my parents said they were, but now that I live on my own I can find Psychological Distinctiveness in regard to politics.

I try not to label people. I once corrected a psychiatrist when she called me "a manic-depressive," and told her that I prefer to be referred to as "a person with bipolar disorder." I won't delve into my psychological history, but I will conclude by pointing out that the distinction I pointed out to the doctor between a label and a descriptive word is an important thing to remember in teaching. The boy in the front row is not a "Jew," he's a "Jewish person." The girl who reads on the playground is not a "bookworm," she's a girl who likes to read. Of course labels like "girl" and "person" are necessary, but I intend to avoid using labels as a teacher, and to encourage students to find similarities when they compare themselves to others.