Commencement Speech June 4, 2011

Last year in a world literature text we use, today’s graduates read that “Tales of the hero and the heroic quest occur in nearly every world culture. If we look closely at hero tales from all over the world and compare them, we find what the Irish novelist James Joyce and the American mythologist Joseph Campbell called the monomyth—literally ‘the one story.’”[1] In all of our literature classes, we encounter these heroes regularly. They are on a “journey…in search of something of value.”

It is the “one story” because the hero’s quest resonates with all of us; we see in it our own life’s journey. Our greatest hopes reside within it. As we engage the world, we want our lives to be both meaningful and triumphant. Commencements are filled with thoughts reflective of the graduates’ highest aspirations as we all celebrate their move from childhood achievement into adult life. All of the graduates here today, indeed, all people everywhere, are looking to be heroes in their own stories.

Sometimes in literature the hero enjoys a grand triumph. Our class today can remember encounters with them. In The Aeneid, for example, the hero Aeneas leads his fellow Trojans from the ashes of a vanquished city to found the majestic Roman Empire. Aeneas is larger than life, a demi-god, who performs fantastic deeds, saves an entire race, and creates a nation.

But…his triumph is never guaranteed. Aeneas must overcome not just enemies, but an intense inner conflict in order to lead his people.

Another hero the seniors remember is John Proctor in The Crucible, who tries to rehabilitate his tarnished reputation, bravely risking death when he will not accede to a false confession of witchcraft. Similarly, Amir in The Kite Runner, seeks the personal triumph of redemption, and finds “a way to be good again” after betraying a friend.

Clearly, then, whoever these heroes may be, in whatever guise, they have flaws and face challenges; were it not so, we could certainly not relate to them, aware as we are of our own imperfections, our own obstacles. However exciting the adventure, they, and we, do not achieve the objectives of our quests easily.

But the good news is that we do not have to go it alone. Just as "mythic heroes are often aided on their quests by loyal friends”[2] or some other benefactors, we ordinary folks are too.

Initially, all of us have gotten assists from parents and guardians in the years of our innocence. In your earliest days, graduates, they prepared you for your school years, and anticipated your journey with both pride and poignancy. American actor and poet Victor Buono gives voice to these mixed emotions in the persona of a mother anticipating her daughter’s first day of school, the precursor and parallel to the ceremony we mark today:

Dear World [he begins]:
I bequeath to you today one little girl...in a crispy dress...with two brown eyes...and a happy laugh that ripples all day long… and a flash of light brown hair that bounces in the sun when she runs.
I trust you'll treat her well.

She's slipping out of the backyard of my heart this morning...and skipping off down the street to her first day of school. And never again will she be completely mine.

Now…she'll learn to tune her ears for the sounds of school-bells...and deadlines...and she'll learn to giggle...and gossip....
No longer will she have time….to pop out of bed with the dawn and kiss lilac blooms in the morning dew. No, now the magic of books and learning will replace the magic of her blocks and dolls. And now she'll find new heroes.

For five full years now I've been her sage… and mother and friend. Now she'll learn to share her worship with her teachers...which is only right. But no longer will I be the smartest woman in the whole world….

She'll learn in time that proper young ladies do not… kiss dogs...or keep frogs in pickle jars in bedrooms....
Today she'll learn for the first time that all who smile at her are not her friends. And I'll stand on the front porch and watch her start out on the long, lonely journey to becoming a woman.

So, world, I bequeath to you today one little girl...in a crispy dress...with two brown eyes...and a flash of light brown hair that bounces in the sunlight when she runs.

I trust you'll treat her well.

Of course, we mothers and fathers feel keenly the irony of that refrain. The world will give our sons and daughters dragons and demons to conquer. But then, a world without challenges would be stagnant and colorless, and there would be no triumph in an inevitable achievement.

In fact, it is no secret that personal growth happens through struggle and in attempting things we’re afraid we can’t do. It is precisely because the hero has to be brave, to persevere, and even to suffer that we admire him.

But in that the hero’s story, the “one story,” is ours as well, there is good news for you also, graduates.

In the 2008 presidential campaign cycle, CNN sponsored interactive debates of the candidates with voters, who asked the hopefuls questions via Skype. Whether they were Democratic or Republican contestants I honestly can’t recall, but I do remember one question posed to them. “Who has had the most profound influence on your life?” one viewer queried of all the candidates in the debate. In a field of many, they all had the same answer. Even the most hard-edged politician in the pack melted into a warm, intimate tale about a cherished teacher.

Now I have a vested interest in singing the praises of teachers, but I tell this story for a larger purpose. Graduates, as your parents began this good work, someone, or more likely, many someones, here at the South Shore Charter Public School, has given you everything you need to make this journey.

Most of us know the film version of The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy makes a journey to a land of fantasy, where the good witch Glinda, her benefactor, gives Dorothy ruby slippers. The girl is in awe of this fantastic land, but she is lost, and all she wants to do is go home. When the great wizard who promises to help her turns out to be a fraud, Glinda appears and tells Dorothy, “You don't need to be helped any longer. You've always had the power to go back to Kansas.” Dorothy has worn the ruby slippers throughout her quest journey, and, in these shoes, she has come through many trials and triumphed over a formidable adversary. That is, she has had everything she needed to take this trip. When she clicks her heels together, home becomes a different place, a place she sees through the new prism of knowledge earned. Dorothy gains wisdom and uncovers her own potency, as the quest was never about getting back to Kansas; it was always about a journey of self-discovery.

As you, graduates, embark on your heroes’ journeys-- metaphorical and real-- you too will find yourselves in awe of the world-- beyond our community here-- often exhilarated, sometimes a little lost. It is an exquisitely prodigious endeavor to strike out on one’s own. Revel in the excitement of it, and, in those uncertain moments, also remember that someone here has nurtured you, inspired you, and believed in you. Along with your family’s love, some teacher or mentor has given you ruby slippers, and you have everything you need to make this journey.

Those of you who know Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations recall that as Pip sets off for London, he wants to hang back and return to the security of home, but one step forward leads to another, and he reflects, “We changed [coaches] again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to go back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me.”

Class of 2011, fasten tightly the ruby slippers that will guide your steps, and then look up and follow your most excellent of dreams, because in addition to the gifts of others, you have all inherited as your birthright the human yearning and potential to follow the hero’s path. As the ancient poet Ovid says in the Metamorphoses, humankind was “moulded, mixed with water, in likeness of the gods that govern the world—and while the other creatures on all fours look downwards, man was made to hold his head erect in majesty and see the sky, and raise his eyes to the bright stars above.”[3]

Congratulations, graduates, from me, “for you, a thousand times over.”

---

[1] World Literature (Boston: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 2001) 26.

[2] 27.

[3]Ovid, Metamorphoses l. 82ff, trans. Melville, quoted in www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanPrometheus.html.

Exogamein

Romeo and Juliet is a touchstone for the complications of marrying outside the tribe, a tragedy especially moving because of the ludicrous feud between two families that are "alike in dignity." Paris, a neutral party, tries to point out this irony to Capulet, saying "of honorable reckoning are you both/And pity it is you have lived at odds so long." When Juliet warns Romeo of the danger he will face from her family, he responds, "With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls/...therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me." His declaration presents us with the image of transcendent love that does not wade into, but rises above the feud. Looking at the world through new eyes allows both teens the courage to marry outside the tribe.

In the Brian Friel play Translations, set in 1835 Ireland, the scholarly character of Jimmy Jack comments dispassionately on a similarly forbidden romance between the Irish Maire and the English officer Yolland. "Do you know the Greek word endogamein?" Jimmy asks. "It means to marry within the tribe. And the word exogamein means to marry outside the tribe. And you don't cross those borders casually--both sides get very angry." Yolland falls in love with both Maire and Irish culture and wants to learn Gaelic. In the course of his labors, however, his idealism begins to falter, and he frets aloud:

Even if I did speak Irish, I'd always be an outsider here wouldn't I? I may learn

the password but the language of the tribe will always elude me, won't it? The

The private core will always be...hermetic, won't it?

Owen's response is a shrugging and tepid "You can decode us."

The ensuing scene in which Maire and Yolland confess their feelings for each other shows that even though she knows no English and he knows no Gaelic, they understand each other perfectly, speaking, of course, the language of love. Yet the problem of a relationship with the Other does not go away. At the end of the play we face the possibility that Yolland has been killed by Irish rebels. Neither Maire's acceptance of him nor his desire to join the tribe is enough to overcome the circumscribed roles assigned to them.

I am reminded of the problem of marrying outside the tribe as my daughter gets ready to declare publicly her commitment to Pavel, who is Russian. "Pasha," as we know him, has been agile in his assimilation and is extremely fluent in English, but he still at times has to work past a "decoding" of both American culture and language. His empathy for others in this situation is such that a particular mission for him in hotel management is to make foreigners feel welcome. This theme further resonates with me as my nephew John is in August marrying an Asian woman of the Hmong culture, far afield from John's frankly "vanilla," Midwestern, All-American, baseball star background. In addition, I have friends who have married outside the tribe, and have listened to poignant stories of the difficulty in deciding where to put down roots when neither partner is entirely at home in the other's country.

An unlikely, and I am willing to admit, eccentric analogy to the problem of marrying outside the tribe is the centerpiece of the fantasy young adult novel series Twilight. In this saga by Stephanie Meyer, the teenaged protagonist Bella is faced with this conundrum. She is romantically linked with two handsome young men, Edward Cullen and Jacob Black, who, in contrast with the awkward and self-conscious Bella, have extraordinary, supernatural powers. She does not fit into either Edward's tribe of vampires or Jacob's Native Americans, who "phase"into wolves when angered. Both men competitively hover over her and battle dark forces to protect the seemingly hapless Bella.

In time, though, Bella makes her choice by accepting Edward's marriage proposal and making the brave decision to be "changed"with the vampire's venom, even as Edward agonizes over making her "a monster" and taking away her soul. However, Bella is aware that as a normal human she will age and die, and Edward will not. And as much as she wants to fit in with his vampire family, all of whom love her, as a human she can only decode them. She can never be a part of Edward's world as she is.

After she marries Edward, she is officially in his tribe yet physically outside of it, and Edward remains apprehensive about losing the human Bella. But the issue is forced when she becomes dangerously pregnant with a half-vampire child that exerts kicks so strong they bruise Bella's abdomen. It is both a sign that love finds a way--the pregnancy is a shock as it has been thought the two species could not breed--and evidence that maybe it shouldn't.

But it is at this point that Bella really begins to take charge of her life. Even though the baby's growth breaks a couple of ribs and Bella's pelvis, and it is believed by all that she will die in protecting the demi-vampire growing within her, Bella nevertheless refuses an abortion. In the end, she gets her wish to resign from the human race--Edward must inject her with vampire venom as the only way to save her life in childbirth.

The story in the end not only resonates with Romeo and Juliet, but it is also a retelling of The Ugly Duckling with a plot twist in which Beauty also becomes the Beast. Vampire Bella is graceful while human Bella is clumsy. The new Bella is breathtakingly beautiful whereas the old Bella is less radiant. She becomes super-human in physical strength, aggression, confidence, and, in a dramatic and symbolic turnabout, she becomes the protector, rather than the protected, of all in her new extended family. In short, she realizes her full potential only by becoming a vampire.

Granted,there are some problems with this turnabout in the telling. In vampire mythology, these beings live on human blood and are hence murderers, which Meyer circumvents by making the Cullens the vanguard of a kinder and gentler "vegetarian" race that hunts animals for blood. Still, the thirst does not disappear, and their self-control strains credibility. Also, the issue of "soulless" vampires is unconvincingly parsed in an effort to portray the vampires and the transmogrified Bella sympathetically.

But to set aside theses inconsistencies in favor of what the author seems to be saying in toto, it is clear that by marrying outside the tribe, Bella finds herself. From the outside, becoming a monster is horrifying to us. It is only when she crosses the border into Edward's world that she, and we through her narrative, go beyond decoding. With new eyes, Bella becomes what she is meant to be all along.

Bella's story is an uncharacteristically hopeful message for those who choose exogamein. Like Bella, those who dare can find fulfillment and joy through crossing into another's world, as personal growth happens in risking engagement with the unknown. Through Bella's fictive universe, her example writ large brings into sharp focus exactly the same courageous act that ordinary people choose in real life situations. Given that we do not choose whom we love, we do yet have some scope in love's nurturance and our commitment to it. Marrying outside the tribe can open both worlds, and as Romeo reminds us, "stony limits cannot hold love out,/And what love can do, that dares love attempt."

Hair Vines

There is a notion in feminist writings that a woman's wedding day is a time when she rules in an ephemeral kingdom as compensation for a life of subservience which then follows through all the days of her life. While Kate and her bridesmaids were here last week, we watched a few episodes of Bridezillas, a long-running reality show of brides behaving badly. It is a TV experience that seems to support that acerbic view of The Big Day. One bride, Shandra, who especially struck me, repeatedly screeches, "This is my day! This isn't about you. This is about me!" We are meant to ridicule Shandra, but competing with that intent is the pathos of her disappointment at having to remind people what she believes ought to be apparent--this is the one day of her life that she gets to be important.



But while I think there is some truth in this cynical view, a more charitable interpretation is that a wedding represents the passing out of maidenhood--she is the unplucked rose, if you will--into marriage. It seems perhaps a bit quaint to us now to assume chastity in a bride, but the notion that a married woman's sexual life, sanctified by her vows, is one that gives her dignity and becomes her well. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Theseus asserts that "earthlier happy is the rose distilled/Than that which withering on the virgin thorn/Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness" (I.i.75-77). The "rose distilled," that is to say, perfume, is an apt trope for the essence of womanhood, and her essence lives again in her children.




I don't know whether I was watching the passage of my essence when Kate was getting her hair done, but when the hair vine (an ornament that can be woven throughout the coif) was put in place as trial run, I teared up a little. I could for the first time begin to visualize how she would look as a bride. The event had been a subject for idle meditation before, in spite of all the contact with vendors, clergy, musicians, and relatives, even in the choice of a wedding dress.




That moment had no doubt been masked by tensions about money (I think of the incredulity on Mayhew's face when Kate told him how much a bit of flour and sugar fashioned into a wedding cake was going to cost) and about differing notions of what this nuptial ritual should look like. The whimsical notion by Kate to dance down the aisle like the bridal party in that viral video (picked up by The Office in a wedding sequence) for example, resulted in a spirited and frank exchange of ideas. And my cherished, unique idea of having the closing blessing be "The Lord's Prayer" sung in Russian was beloved of no one but me. And more insidiously, seemingly trivial matters like these have become entrance ramps to air old resentments and hurts.



Still, whether it was an unguarded or just a serene moment, the bejeweled hair vine caught the light and the shine of Kate's curls, and connected me as if it were a thread with my daughter, and I thought that weddings really do have profound, transcendent uses.