Linda Rader Overman - proud of her former student & teacher Enrique Solis who published a brilliant essay-"Delving Into a New World: A Sell Out or Success Story? "

Delving Into a New World: A Sell Out or Success Story?

By Enrique Solis

In high school, I failed eight classes, took summer school every year, and barely graduated with a 2.1 GPA. And those are just my academic shortcomings. Don’t forget the curfew tickets, truancy tickets, arrests, gang activity, and the two occasions I succeeded in evading police helicopters. The miscreant, the delinquent, statistic, society’s worst nightmare—Me. Strangely, it took hindsight to see this person. At the time I thought of myself as the experiencer—one enthralled and beckoned by nature, the universe, music, humanity, and danger. I was the boy who shot out street lights to see the stars. I knocked on friends’ windows at 3 a.m. to wander, talk, and trespass into deserted buildings and on school roofs before watching the sunrise. I climbed into my window at 6 a.m. to start my school day at 7:30 a.m.

What could high school offer this experiencer? Ideally a lot. But almost everything about my particular high school was cumbersome and lifeless. Good grades were the end all, be all. I saw no value in this system—I had already learned that getting an “A” had less to do with actually learning than passively completing busywork. My priorities consisted of testing my limitations—mentally and physically—and engaging with the world on multiple levels. It seemed that almost every class I attended strove to anchor me down to a rigid world where success was going through the motions and learning to do what you’re told. I was bored. And quite frankly, I was frightened at the idea of becoming anything like the vapid, stiff teachers who kicked me out of class for sagging my pants, disagreeing with them, or questioning their authority in any other way. My school supplanted learning with character-shaping.

Until one day I entered a real classroom (real in the sense that learning took place daily). It was AP English: Rhetoric and Composition, and I failed it. This class blew my mind. I was thrust into the academic world: We grappled with the theoretical, historical, and philosophical; instead of vocabulary words, we had rhetorical terms; and we wrote essays constantly. The level of engagement with the texts and with my classmates was on another level. I participated daily and marveled at the knowledge of my teacher and the authors we read. Yet at the same time I was altogether unprepared to pass a class like this—I lacked the structure, discipline, and overall care for school, especially grades to really do what was necessary. I wish this could have been my turning point, but it’s not easy to suddenly stop being the person you’ve always been.

Eventually, I got through high school, just barely, but completed nonetheless. Needless to say, I was apprehensive about entering the “real world,” which my mom defined as a full-time job or full time school—“not half this, part that. Commit to something”. Eventually, I would commit fully as a college student. The semester after high school I earned straight A’s. I felt like it was a mistake. Even my family was in shock. Academic counselors at my high school never even talked to me about college—I needed to focus on making up fails—so five A’s when I got there was way beyond everyone’s expectations, including my own. But I was there and doing well, which was when I decided to pursue a new major. I wanted to become a high school teacher and bring life, purpose, and learning into the classrooms that lacked so much of it. So everything was on track as I entered my first 200-level course in my new major, English.

The class was Major American writers from the late nineteenth century onward. At my community college the vast majority of students were minorities—Black and Hispanic—but as I entered this class there was a sudden demographic transformation. Even the professor noticed: “There are no black students in here, are there?” I raised my hand and answered “No”, and there were about twelve movie posters all over the walls so I pointed out, “and there is only 1 on the walls.” I pointed to a half-illuminated half-silhouetted image of Denzel Washington from Remember the Titans. Everyone looked around to check my findings and seemed to think it an odd observation. But after being there only five minutes, it was blatantly obvious to me—I had entered a different world, a secret community amongst my own consisting of readers, writers, and thinkers few of which were Black or Latino. The students began small talk about a show called Dexter, other English classes, and previous courses with this same instructor. My apprehension grew. These were not high school failures, nor were they any of those students who drop as soon as they get their financial aid. These students were readers. While I was breaking into buildings, they were reading The Great Gatsby; while I slept atop school roofs, they were delving into 1984. Based partly on the literary references they made, and partly on the way they spoke in general, I quickly saw the literacy gap between them and me. I began regretting all those classes I ditched, books I never read, and papers I never wrote. I had read only 3 novels total before college. This was going to be my trial: could I really excel or even just survive in a field I had utterly failed in previously?

The process began. The first book assigned was Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I had heard of this book but had no idea what it entailed, when it was written, where it was written, who had written it, or really anything about it other than it was American. The instructor asked difficult questions and coaxed intelligent answers from many of the students. When it came time to write our papers, we had to choose two opposing scholars on the subject we would discuss. I chose two scholars with differing perspectives on race and whether or not Huck Finn should be banned in certain schools. One scholar, Justin Kaplan, praised the book for its groundbreaking depiction of a black slave, Jim, as a character round with humanity. He emphasizes Huck Finn’s relevance for young students today. Julius Lester takes a cutting and opposite approach. He states that the depiction of Jim is still fraught with stereotypical elements that can be damaging to young black readers who must try to identify with a slave. The instructor had no problem writing Lester off as a loon that didn’t understand the book. For most of my schooling, minorities had ironically been the majority so racial discussions were usually very sensitive, possibly even suppressed. It was odd hearing my instructor say that “anyone who wants to ban Huck Finn is clearly illiterate and incompetent.” I saw his position as radical and dismissive of social contexts other than our own so I decided to take it up in my paper. I followed all of this scholarly work and felt confident in my understanding of the material. I chose to use Lester’s argument to show how the depiction of Jim could cause racial identity issues with modern black readers, especially because the story is told through the eyes of a young narrator (Huck) who struggles with the racism of his culture—I argued that Huck Finn was valued and more relevant to white audiences who struggle with racism at the expense of discomfort or uneasiness felt by black readers. I knew I had picked a controversial position, so I tried to back up my arguments as best I could. I found the task harder than I had imagined and I did not create the essay I originally envisioned. Nonetheless, I turned it in and waited anxiously for his response.

On that essay, I received a zero. Devastated, shocked, and totally embarrassed, I immediately stuffed it into my backpack—hiding my results as everyone critiqued each other’s. I tried hard on that essay, thought I covered the material thoroughly, and even had fun with it. I was ready to quit. The instructor didn’t agree with my position at all and demanded I rewrite it completely. For some reason, it hit me hard: my heart shot adrenaline though my system every few seconds, I stared at a fixed point of my desk, then the wall as tears almost surged forth in front of Denzel’s poster. I honestly did not expect his reaction to be so violent. My paper addressed the discomfort felt by some young Black students when the word “nigger” is read out loud in class, especially by white students. He wrote on my paper, “It is of course, ok for blacks to call each other ‘nigga’ though. It’s called being hypocritical.” Somewhere along the academic process, the argument got brought down to this. I was shocked by his hatred of my paper. It was not truly a zero paper so he must have hated it so much he couldn’t even grade it. I had obviously not been privy to certain rules of that literacy community. In his class, certain arguments are just plain off-limits. I climbed up the academic ladder, skipped a step, slipped, and came tumbling down.

So I rewrote the essay with turbulent emotions: a blend of embarrassment, anger, and determination. I took the opposite stance of my previous essay as proof that I understood the other argument but didn’t agree with it. That rewrite process called upon every faculty I had as a writer (and is quite possibly when I became a writer). I brainstormed for like three days in order to gather the absolute strongest points, labored to find the perfect words, and then edited with a fury. It was exciting and almost easy because I thought of it as just refuting every claim in my previous essay. By presenting his strong perspective on the matter, my instructor, in a way, showed his hand. I knew exactly what the right answer was so to speak. It was then I realized that literature classes are not strictly about making a sound argument, they are about gathering all the information possible from the texts, then reading the instructor to figure out what they want gathered from it. When I turned that rewritten paper in, it was with smug confidence because I knew it was the best paper I could produce, yet I couldn’t suppress the deep fear that my best was simply not enough and I just did not belong in that classroom.

The day the rewrite papers were returned was about as believable as the ending of an episode of Full House. Everyone got their papers but me. Instead the instructor had the nerve to read it to the class in its entirety! He said it was “A well-written, intelligent, even inspiring essay defending Twain and Huck,” then he walked over and put it in my hands. I couldn’t believe it. I felt like I had sold my soul to the devil. Never before had I been more ambivalent: I was incredibly proud of myself for actually pulling it off, yet deeply perturbed by the fact that I was basically being praised for fully embracing ideas that I didn’t even necessarily agree with.

Some would call me a sellout, and the few people I told did call me a sellout. I saw it as proving I wasn’t “illiterate” or “incompetent” just because I chose a difficult position to defend. I had been a social rebel, deviant, and dissenter all my life—I didn’t have to prove that to anyone. If anything, rewriting that paper

helped me prove to myself that I could get over my rebellious tendencies and pride in order to successfully enter this new world. I think most people would say that reading and writing about literature is an enriching experience; however, in order to enter this particular literary community, I had to first give up a huge part of myself. Now, as I grow and come to fruition as a writer, I feel encouraged to find a way to rediscover and utilize those passionate parts of myself that I previously worked so hard to suppress.  

• Published in 
• Irene L. Clark and Emmanuel Sabaiz-Birdsill. College Arguments: Understanding the Genres, 2nd edition. Kendall Hunt, 2015.
• Enrique Solis holds an MA in Rhetoric/Composition from CSUN
• Winner of the Oliver Evans Prize
• Enrique Solis is an English Language Development Teacher / Reading Volume Coach at Alliance Valera Middle School in California

Linda Rader Overman is so proud of her former student Natalie Grill who was a winner of the Oliver W. Evans Writing Prize in Fall 2023--Well done!!

A Comparative Analysis of Spiegelman’s Maus II and Oster’s The Stable Boy of Auschwitz

It has been nearly eighty years since that decisive day when Auschwitz, the largest of the Nazi concentration camp complexes, was liberated under Allied banners. And yet, it is unthinkable that humankind will ever be completely free from the tragedy and atrocity of the Holocaust—nor should we be. Engendered by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime in Germany and radicalized by the onset of the Second World War, the Holocaust was an anti-Semitic campaign that saw the systematic extermination of some six million European Jews. When educating ourselves on the grievous realities of a historical event such as this, no accounts are more invaluable than those of survivors, many of whom have been brave enough to render their personal experiences into published works. Through analyzing the differences in format, narrational perspective, and focal themes between Art Spiegelman and Henry Oster’s respective novels Maus II and The Stable Boy of Auschwitz, we can better appreciate how both works distinctly contribute to Second World War and Holocaust literature, and also serve to expand and challenge public perception of these catastrophic events.

Both Maus II and The Stable Boy of Auschwitz are classified as memoirs, but these two narratives vary importantly in terms of format. The sequel volume to his avant-garde Maus I, Maus II is a postmodern graphic novel not only written by Art Spiegelman, but illustrated by him as well. What makes the graphic style of this story so crucial to its effectiveness is Spiegelman’s decision to depict human beings as rather crudely anthropomorphized animals. With Jews represented as mice, Germans as cats, and the Polish as pigs, Spiegelman provides a visual commentary on power-imbalance, racial prejudice, and loss of humanity. Over the years, Spiegelman’s artistic approach to dealing with such sensitive matters has generated as much controversy as it has critical acclaim, but none can argue its evocativeness. Jagged-edged, darkly shaded images of Art sitting atop a fly swarmed mound of naked, emaciated rodent corpses (Spiegelman 41.3) as seen in Chapter Two: “Auschwitz (Time Flies)” are the sort that make readers necessarily discomfited and that stay with them long after the page has been turned. In comparison, The Stable Boy of Auschwitz is a more traditionally autobiographical novel. With the assistance of Dexter Ford, Oster takes us readers on a harrowing journey—his harrowing journey

—from childhood to adulthood, internment to freedom, desperate survival to hopeful normalcy. Without the visual rhetoric that Spiegelman is known for, the potency of The Stable Boy of Auschwitz resides in the absolute rawness of his account. Oster’s vulnerability and candor makes reading this novel feel more like a one-sided conversation than a story. For example, in the aftermath of a random, pulse-racing massacre of Auschwitz captives recounted in Chapter Twenty-Four: “In the Line of Fire,” Oster writes, “If the Germans had seen that we had escaped from the courtyard, we were sure that they would finish us off. I've never been more terrified in my life. I had to struggle to control my breathing when I finally got to our barracks. I found that I had soiled my pants in my terror—I was a real mess” (102). No exaggerated verbiage, no attempted eloquence, just the truth; the truth in and of itself is poignant enough. But more on Oster’s narration later. For now, it is to be acknowledged that while the formats of these two memoirs offer completely different reading experiences, they are equally successful in revealing the horrors of the Holocaust.

Spiegelman and Oster’s survival narratives are further differentiated by the fact that one is told from a secondhand perspective, and the other is told from a firsthand perspective. While Vladek Spiegelman, Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor, is the apparent protagonist of Maus II, his son, Art, or Artie, is the author and true narrational voice. This complex dynamic between survivor and storyteller is an additional source of tension throughout the novel’s already tension- high events. Because no matter how brutally thorough Art’s father certainly was in communicating his experience, and no matter how faithfully Art was able to then artistically relate said experience, the younger Spiegelman can never fully comprehend what it was to live through a Nazi concentration camp. In a moment of frustration while talking to his psychiatrist in Chapter Two, this is something that Artie admits: “My book? Hah! What book?? Some part of me doesn't want to draw or think about Auschwitz. I can’t visualize it clearly and I can't begin to imagine what it felt like” (Spiegelman 46.1A). Conversely, in The Stable Boy of Auschwitz, Henry Oster tells his own story, and as such, there is a level of intimacy about this novel that is simply impossible for Spiegelman to equal. This intimacy is entirely unromantic and at times stomach-turning to read, as is especially the case in Chapter Twenty-Four. Before relating one of the worst traumas he endured at Auschwitz, Oster states, “In all the years since I was imprisoned in Auschwitz, there is one story I never talked about, one experience I never shared with anyone else” (98). He then proceeds to describe in terrible detail what it was like to be penned in with other unlucky victims when “Two machine-gun crews that had been concealed in the trucks started firing, their muzzles flashing in the darkness, spitting bullets right into the crowd of prisoners” (Oster 101). Susan Oster, second wife of Henry Oster, spoke to us about how her husband was hesitant to share this event even with her, and when he did, it was with weeping— so terrible was the trauma still. This should only cause us to appreciate Oster’s vulnerability in this novel more. He is inviting the public into the darkest, most tormented recesses of his memory, and it is frightfully powerful. Now, to be clear, the deeply personal quality of Oster’s narrative in no way suggests that Spiegelman’s is somehow less authentic. Rather, having access to the perspective of a survivor as well as that of a survivor’s child allows us multi-dimensional insight into the suffering of Nazi persecuted Jews. 

Although there are definite thematic through-lines running between Maus II and The Stable Boy of Auschwitz—most essential being survival and trauma—Spiegelman and Oster offer different and independently edifying explorations of these. Trauma is a transmittable thing, and it is this theory that is at the very heart of Maus II. In Chapter Two, Spiegelman confronts intergenerational trauma head-on, exposing through a therapy session how his psychology and identity have been negatively altered by his father’s experiences during the Holocaust. To his psychiatrist, Artie confesses that despite the wholesale success of his graphic novel, he often feels like a failure or a fraud for not having survived what his father survived at Auschwitz. Abashed, he says, “No matter what l accomplish, it doesn't seem like much compared to surviving Auschwitz” (Spiegelman 44.3A). This comment then cracks open an important conversation about survivor’s guilt, which is another vital sub-theme of Maus II. Between Artie’s petulant attitude and Vladek’s overbearing expectations, father and son never did have an easy relationship. Even after Vladek has died, Artie harbors a lot of resentment toward him, which he feels guilt over, considering all that his father endured. But Artie’s psychiatrist suggests that it was Vladek’s guilt as a survivor that caused the discord between them to begin with. He submits, “Maybe your father needed to show that he was always right—that he could always survive— because he felt guilty about surviving” (Spiegelman 44.3B). What he is saying, more or less, is that Vladek’s survivor’s guilt and Artie’s non-survivor’s guilt are inseparable. In Oster’s The Stable Boy of Auschwitz, Heinz’s trauma is exhibited as more individual and more immediate.

        Throughout the novel, Oster never allows readers to relax, to get comfortable, which only evinces the constant threat that Jews were under. The worst part is that, in the end, it didn’t matter how well they performed their assigned jobs; they had no control over whether they lived or died, as is so violently exhibited in Chapter Twenty-Four. In that same chapter, Oster talks about how, existing in that kind of reality, he had to mentally remove himself from the trauma. But in doing so, he, like so many others, sacrificed a part of his humanity: “Even though we Jews were being persecuted—and often executed—as a group, in order to survive in this hellhole, you first had to look out for yourself. We were desensitized, demeaned and dehumanized. We were like robots, doing whatever we could to stay alive” (Oster 104). For these people, rewired by brutality and terror, or reduced to their most animal selves, as Spiegelman portrays, survival became the only objective. This is the most consequential theme in both Maus II and The Stable Boy of Auschwitz.

        Art Spiegelman’s Maus II and Henry Oster’s The Stable Boy of Auschwitz are comparable in that both make accessible the experiences of Holocaust survivors. That said, it would be negligence to assume that one survivor’s story is the same as another’s. Indeed, as discussed in this essay, the different formats, narrational perspectives, and themes the authors present in these two memoirs are what make them such valuable contributions to Holocaust and Second World War education. And yet, there are those who have claimed that such upsetting, honest material has no appropriate place in school curriculum. This conservative mentality has been met with much objection, and the counterargument is simple: These books, however difficult they are to read, are history, and history cannot be censored. The Holocaust must be taught and studied because it happened, and because it could happen again. But if we are to have any hope at all for a better humanity, it is imperative that we remember with active rumination the evil we are capable of.

---Natalie Grill

Linda Rader Overman is so proud of her student Edwin Aguilar

My student, Edwin Aguilar, graduated from CSUN with his MA in Creative Writing.  I am so proud of his achievement and his going into the teaching profession. Well done Edwin.  I am honored that you asked me to participate in your MA hooding ceremony!

Edwin's graduate project: "Kaledoscope." 

Hooded by Linda Overman

 

 

Linda Rader Overman continue to be very proud of her students' critical film reviews of Mustang by director, Deniz Gamze Ergüven.

@CSUN 

Winner Linda Nichols Joseph Award- 2021

Winner Thomas Matthew Magness Graduate Memorial Fund -2022

So proud of this work my colleagues published Ch 15 in as it is such an important read: The Invisible Professor: The Precarious Lives of the New Faculty Majority

My former CSUN colleagues  

 

Jennifer K. Johnson and 

Nicole Warwick  

who are now at University of California, Santa Barbara just published this article 

"Reconsidering the Status of Contingency: Are These Really the Trenches?"

Lecturer. Assistant Professor. To those outside of academia, there is little to no
recognition of the distinction between these academic ranks. But within U.S. ac-
ademic circles, there is a huge disparity between them in terms of what they con-
vey about job security, salary, privileges, and respect. 

The Invisible Professor: The Precarious Lives of the New Faculty Majority

Edited by Natalie M. Dorfeld
Copy edited by Karen P. Peirce. Designed by Mike Palmquist.

This edited collection, the first in the Practices & Possibilities series to be published in its Voices from the Field section, offers a rich set of narratives by writing instructors who are serving or have worked in contingent positions. Intended for anyone considering a career in the humanities, The Invisible Professor seeks to reach individuals in three phases of their careers: those thinking of entering the profession, those knee-deep in it and looking for ways to improve conditions, and those who have vacated academic positions for more humane alternative tracks.

As academia comes to a crossroads, with a disheartening shift towards a more disposable business model, multiple solutions are desperately needed. Faculty members in contingent positions are the new faculty majority on college campuses, and they are most likely the first professors students will meet. They deserve respect and a livable wage.

 Love these Professors who are fabulous teachers and scholars and dear friends!!

Prof Linda Overman is so proud of her Phd colleague, Julie Staun, congratulations [OBE &] Honorary Fellow University of Cumbria

Graduation Ceremony Wednesday 20 July 2022 3PM  

Spending a couple summers together at University of Cumbria- Lancaster, Julie Staun, and I shared rooms in the residence halls at University Cumbria - Lancaster with fellow students [some much younger than ourselves]. We enjoyed attending classes together, shopping for meals together, grabbing tea before and after class together.  All the while forging ahead to obtain our PhD's while away from home, she from Denmark [albeit Julie was born in the UK], myself from Los Angeles. 

Julie was awarded her doctorate at the age of 76 (mine came at the age of 63). Julie just became an Honorary Fellow at the Univ of Cumbria in recognition of her lifelong service in the field Occupational Health. This after being awarded an OBE in 2015.

So proud of this brilliant woman and loved sharing some/many glasses of wine together on those long nights of study on campus on chilly Lancaster, Lancashire nights. 

Watch her give her acceptance speech at 52 minutes in on the above link of the graduation ceremony. If she had lived here in Hollywood she would be running a movie studio and doing it with a passion and power as her life of service in the field of occupational health nursing all over the world shows.  Love this woman! A force to be reckoned with. 

Dracarys Baby this gal is on fire!

Prof Linda Overman is so proud of her CSUN honors student Janice Hill

It was with much joy that I was invited to share in CSUN Honors Student, Janice Hill (currently in our MA in English program)  receiving her University Academic Honors medallion at the CSUN yesterday 5/14/2022. Janice was my student for three semesters and was always an amazing achiever! Excellence was the only thing that she accepted and she truly earned this award of magna cum laude. BRAVO Janice and well done.  It was also a pleasure to meet your parents.

 

  

 

CSUN HONORS CONVOCATION:
Honors Convocation is designed to celebrate a select group of students on the basis of Scholastic or Personal Achievement. Honorees will have received an email invitation as well as a physical invitation which will arrive by US postal around the same time. The ceremony typically lasts about an hour where students are awarded with an Honors Convocation Medallion.

Aunt Lute Books helped me honor Gloria Anzaldua's contribution to ground breaking scholarship

auntlute We love seeing the reach Borderlands/La Frontera has had in the world! Linda Rader Overman cited Gloria Anzaldúa's work in their thesis. Have you used any Aunt Lute books in your work? Let us know! We'd love to share. 

 "We love seeing the reach Borderlands/La Frontera has had in the world! Linda Rader Overman cited Gloria Anzaldúa's work in their thesis. Have you used any Aunt Lute books in your work? Let us know! We'd love to share.

Linda Overman also shared some words on Anzaldua's influence in her work:

"Watching Gloria Anzaldua speak to a large audience of many hundreds at California State University, Northridge cemented the value of her brilliant Borderlands/La Frontera for me.  This must have been around 1999/2000 or 2001 (I am not certain) but I was riveted by the power of this tiny woman.  She spoke with such authority about una herida abierta, that wound that exists of being caught between two cultures.
I felt a similar wound that day--as I am Mexican on my mother's side and Caucasian on my dad's side. Similar to the conflict of physical and psychological borders Anzaldua spoke of with its furious features of hatred and anger --drove my parents to divorce as they were never able to straddle either.
The power of that wound drove me to complete my first Master's thesis Weaving the Fabric of Myself with a similar fury.  Anzaldua talked about the work she was endeavoring to weave into her own PhD work as I recall.  She showed slides of her imagery expounding on this work.  She apologized about not being a great artist as the images looked like little stick figures.  That did not matter however. Her impact gave me the incentive to weave my thesis with a collection of threads that made up the entire fabric of my life as the geography of Anzaldua's life cemented the strength of her own hybrid existence. I am forever grateful."

#auntlutebooks #books #bookstagram #indiepublishing
 

Linda Rader Overman is humbled by her Excellence in Teaching award nomination

Thanks to my CSUN English 495

Multi Genre Literacy in a Global Context Fall 2017 students for this award.  I am humbled by it because it is always an honor to teach future secondary school teachers of English. I learn so much from you all and know that you shall inspire your own students similarly.

Linda Rader Overman thanks THE KINDNESS OF THE HANGMAN authors: Henry Oster & Dexter Ford for speaking @CSUN

Listening to Holocaust survivor, Dr. Henry Oster, and his co-author Dexter Ford is a new experience every single time they do me the honor of speaking to my students in the CSUN English Dept.

"Henry Oster has told his compelling, inspiring life story, battling prejudice and the politics of fear, at the Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance once a month, on Sundays, since 1977" and in his raw memoir The Kindness of the Hangman he details how he "hid his mother from the SS in an attic in the Lodz, Poland Ghetto. He escaped a firing squad in Auschwitz. Endured a death march through the Polish winter. Formed a life-long friendship in the nightmare barracks of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Saw his friends killed by a British fighter-bomber. And came within hours of starving to death before his liberation by General Patton's 3rd Army."

This collaboration of oral history and organic narrative I-feel-like-I-am-there-with-you-Henry work of pain, agony, loss, salvation, success, and memory remains profound no matter how often I assign the book to my literature students.  Whenever these fascinating men come to discuss the genesis of their gut wrenching text, its writing process, and the outcome of such a poignant work--my students are all the better for it.

With the utmost gratitude I thank you again, Dexter and Henry.  I am forever humbled by the gift you give. We all are.

Holocaust survivors who tell their stories so that we shall never forget are disappearing all too quickly.  There are still many who have not told them, but Henry Oster has and continues to SPEAK.  His words are a gift to history and posterity--a gift we must never take for granted. In November he will turn 90. As long as the universe enables us to listen, we always will.  We better!!!!!

Linda Rader Overman is proud and honored to accept this nomination from her students in Adolescent Literature this Spring of 2017 at CSUN.
I am deeply humbled.

Linda Rader Overman is very proud of her students' critical film reviews of Mustang by director, Deniz Gamze Ergüven.

Foreplay the 13^th: Mustang by Kyle Edwards
 

            The film Mustang is both a coming of age tale about five sisters and the strife they encounter through female adolescence growing up in Turkey, and a cautionary tale about freedom of expression, and the price paid for breaking the status quo. Sonay, Selma, Ece, Nur, and Lale play the role of five sisters that take the audience through their journey of overcoming adversity, often without much of any positive outcome. One by one the audience witnesses their lives change within given relationships not just with each other and members of their own family, but the external conflict between themselves and society as a whole. The film sparks a conversation about the role of women in many nations where religion takes precedent over individualism. Therefore, the film Mustang is reminiscent of a teenage slasher horror movie, masquerading as a coming of age tale of female individualism overcoming adversity.

            Female sexuality is the driving cognitive metaphor throughout much of the movie. There are two basic elements of the film that guide my perspective on the film: parallelism and motif. The film begins innocently enough with the five sisters mentioned playing in ocean waters with a group of adolescent boys. Physical contact is represented in a very child-like sense, with no sexual overtone or sexual contact expressed during the opening scenes. This setup establishes the mood and characterization that carries the rest of the film. It is necessary, for its ability to show the innocence of the five sisters all living out an idyllic afternoon among friends. The motif among these scenes, the binding connection symbol, is the ocean. The ocean then represents the metaphor between nature and man’s dominion.

            The ocean is shot at a wide angle, with close ups involving the girls all laughing in its bliss and among the boys. It is almost as if the ocean acts as a barrier to the outside world around them, and a blanket that encompasses both the girls and the boys at close physical proximity. There’s already a strange feeling of tension, that part of life where girls and boys start to mature and blossom into women and men, and is represented with some of the older sisters, particularly with the likes of Selma and Sonay. They are carried atop the shoulders of boys, the ocean waters drenching them repeatedly as the men bounce them up and down above their heads with the ebb and flow of the waves. It represents the sexual coming of age between the two eldest sisters, whose physical proximity to the boys are almost natural for girls their age with developing hormones, with the sensation of dampness and the bobbing between shots giving the audience the allusion about sex.

            After their trip through the garden, the introduction of the film’s parallelism is first seen. The ocean scene and the garden scene are similar with their bliss and naïve quest to explore the nature of life around them, and thus an inner journey to search for their own identities. What separates the two is the man with a shotgun who jolts the women back into reality, of diving into areas they should not be wandering. The entire scene sets up the second act of the film, and the consequences for flying too close to the sun so to speak, and even representational of the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden when they became too self-aware of their Original Sin. In this case, the Original Sin is the lack of concern for obeying status quo, and allowing themselves to partake in open public physical interaction with young boys.

            From here on out in the film, the idea of premarital sex, or any physical lewd act for that matter, is discussed openly. It allows the audience to see the main external conflict right in the open without any hesitation: Their virginity, their chastity, their bodies and their vaginas are not their own. On the contrary, they are vessels for men, for society, and for their future husbands now and forever. While the beginning and the very end of the film becomes a story of personal growth and overcoming adversity for one particular character, the main protagonist and the youngest sister Lale, it then turns into a cautionary tale for all the other sisters.

            Maureen Medved, a famed scholar who analyzed the subliminal messages of the film Mustang mentions in her article, “the innocent freedom they experienced before their imprisonment was a cruel illusion” (Medved 47). In almost every teenage slasher film, there are “tropes” commonly mixed in for the audience to analyze. A group of teenage characters arrive, stumble upon a remote area they shouldn’t have wandered, and are then systematically killed off one at a time usually because of their sexual promiscuity, drug use, tattoos and piercings, and anything else that symbolizes individuality and acts seen as negative by society and the status quo. The heroine, if there are any survivors, is always the chaste and innocent girl where through her sexual repression, defeats her antagonist by expelling all her tension through physical action. Mustang turns into a horror movie, with clever variations disguising some of the more overplayed and clichéd stereotypes and tropes.

            Our five main characters are all introduced, each with their own personalities and yearnings for personal growth and freedom. Each are thrown into naïve amusement during the opening scenes at the ocean and through the garden. As the film progresses, they are marked by an elder neighbor who spills the beans and begins to change the course of their lives forever. Uncle Erol, their guardian along with a multitude of elderly aunts and female relatives, scorn them for even thinking of unleashing their sexual promiscuity. They are all locked up in a house that slowly but surely becomes more and more securitized, like countless infamous tales of a Haunted House Story where no one can leave. Their sexual promiscuity ends up being their downfall when the elders think it is time to sell off their girls to the highest bidders, with not even a word of consideration from the sisters themselves.  

            The wedding scene represents an excellent example of parallelism, where one sister Sonay is beyond overjoyed to be engaged to the man of her dreams, while another sister, Selma, is openly displeased. Her “virginity check” is a time for catharsis for herself and for the audience, to analyze why she states her message of how she has slept with many men even though her hymen seems to say otherwise. It’s as if she’s wondering why she is being punished with this miserable life and circumstances outside her control, and why she simply cannot enjoy life and individuality. She is already dead, “killed” on the inside and has been for some time. Sonay seems to believe that she has “won,” that because she is with the man of her “dreams” she will be just fine and “we” as an audience never know what ends up of her fate and whether a happy marriage is in the works and maybe that is all she needs. But then again, how do any of us know if a happy marriage to a loving spouse is all we’ll ever need as the years go on?

            Ece is the next sister on the chopping block, who suffers the ultimate doom. It is revealed that Uncle Erol has been molesting her, stealing away her innocence. In rebellion, she allows herself to have sexual relations with another boy in the backseat of her Uncle’s car very dangerously and in public. Her exposure to sex has always come at a negative, and soon enough, she ends up taking her own life with a gun. Since sex is taken by force, and innocence is robbed, the effects on Ece are devastating and comes at a heavy price, along with the burden for those suffering that hardship. Maral Erol, a researcher on Turkey’s medical arena, states that, “Nearly half of forensic physicians in Turkey conduct virginity examinations for social reasons despite beliefs that such examinations are inappropriate, traumatic to the patient, and often performed against the patient's will” (Erol 55). Even if the girls get away with certain acts of promiscuity, society will always find a way to keep them in check, scaring them into forever forcing them to be pure, or suffer the consequences beyond your imagination.

            Lale’s last sister in the house, Nur, is also being taken advantage of by Uncle Erol. Through a cunning plan, the two sisters finally act against society and their elders and find a way to escape the horrors and trauma of what was to be their futures. Lale is in control, as the innocent and still a chaste girl who takes over the wheel of a car and drives off – somewhere…anywhere. Our main protagonist, our heroine, our leading lady who defeats her monster ends up escaping and even manages to survive with one of her sisters, but do they drive off into the sunset? Is it a happy ending to know that all of Lale’s other sisters, except for Sonay who accepts her fate to be a housewife for better or worse, are doomed one way or the other and punished more or less by the use of either sexual desires or sexual misdeeds? How far can they go behind the wheel of that car, at their age, in an entire nation designed to shackle them? The movie has another classic horror movie inspired ending; our main heroine has survived, for now, but the boogeyman is still out there lurking and stalking. And if it’s not their Uncle, it’s their aunts, or their neighbors, or the police, or anyone at all in the country of Turkey.

            Analyzing the movie therefore is like summarizing any teenage slasher film. A group of young adolescents think they are all alone, with the freedom to express themselves any way they see fit. They are soon “found out” by a force, an unstoppable entity that stalks them at every turn. They are isolated, secluded from others in a physical “location” they cannot escape from and weld shut from the outside. One by one, sex proves to be their downfall until finally a brave chaste heroine makes a daring escape that expels the antagonist once and for all out of their lives. Before the film concludes, and as they are driving off into the unknown, it highlights their emotional growth and spiritual journey, and hints that the audience shouldn’t necessarily assume a “happy ending” if all of Lale’s sisters are gone or negatively affected, and the Boogeyman is still out there in some form or another trying to catch them. The title of Mustang, is in reference to Lale, the brave steed who gets away by finding her inner strength to confront the evil fate that stands before her. The one, lone chaste warrior who at least for a brief while, has the chance to get away.

Works Cited

Ergüven, Deniz Gamze, director. Mustang. Cohen Media Group, 2015.

Medved, Maureen. "Mustang." Herizons Summer 2016: 47. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. 7 Nov. 2016.

 

Erol, Maral. "From Opportunity to Obligation: Medicalization of Post-menopausal Sexuality 
in Turkey." Sexualities, 17.1-2 (2014): 43-62.

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Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s Mustang and the Fight for Control Over Women’s Bodies 
by Colette Meade

In America, mustangs are feral horses that have escaped captivity are adapted to the conditions of the wilderness (Schafer). Mustang is a 2015 Turkish film directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven where young women also fight to escape captivity. The film centers on the story of five orphaned sisters growing up in rural Turkey in the early 2000’s. The film stars Güneş Şensoy as Lale, Doğa Doğuşlu as Nur, Elit İşcan as Ece, Tuğba Sunguroğlu as Selma, and İlayda Akdoğan as Sonay. At the beginning of the film, the sisters are shown playing innocently in the ocean with male classmates. Unfortunately, this is interpreted as a sexual offense by members of their community, and their surrogate parental figures, a grandmother and uncle, Because of this incident, the older sisters Ece, Sonay, and Selma are subjected to “virginity tests,” all of the girls are not allowed to return to school, and their home is converted into a prison that they are rarely allowed to leave. Meanwhile, their grandmother begins cooking and sewing lessons with the sisters as they are set up in arranged marriages one by one. In addition, it is revealed that their uncle is molesting first Ece, and then Nur.  Ergüven intended to convey a powerful feminist message against patriarchal oppression in her film Mustang; she conveyed this through strategic plot points including the reaction to the girls frolicking with their male classmates, Nur’s molestation, and Ece and Lale’s acts of rebellion.

There is a powerful message regarding women’s role in a patriarchal society in the film Mustang. Patriarchy is defined as “a social structural phenomenon in which males have the privilege of dominance over females, both visibly and subliminally [which is] manifested in the values, attitudes, customs, expectations, and institutions of the society” (Darity).  Turkey has a long-standing tradition of being a rather patriarchal society despite some modern improvements over the years. The Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures describes this by saying “While women have access to the public sphere as citizens equal with men in modern Turkey, the private sphere is still held to be the appropriate place for women, since their roles as mothers and wives are prioritized by the prevailing patriarchal mentality” (Özman). As recently as March 2016, Turkey’s current president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said in a speech that a woman “is above all else a mother” (France-Presse). Places like Turkey are able to maintain patriarchy through control over female bodies. Power over bodies is an extremely important way to perpetuate social hierarchies as famous French philosopher Michel Foucault explains in his work “Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.” Some feminists, such as poet Adrienne Rich and activist Andrea Dworkin, also discuss power over bodies and how it is a way that males maintain dominance over women (Bordo). What makes Mustang such a unique film is how it skillfully presents ideals similar to Rich. Foucault, and Dworkin’s without ever once mentioning politics or feminism. As Adile Sedef Dönmez states in a review of the film, “The movie explores women’s issues by focusing on social and private life, rather than structural and legal problems, and through this delineates the way these oppressive structures are recreated within the family and society.” The politics of a nation are often an abstract concept to many people and the ways in which they affect the family unit is where they truly play out. Thus, the focus on the family in the film puts the issues of control and dominance over women’s bodies’ in the viewer's face in a very real and approachable way. 

The catalyst for all the action throughout the film is the scene where the sisters play in the ocean with the school boys. The reaction to this incident shows how the town, the girl’s uncle, and their grandmother all attempt to exert control over the sister’s sexuality. According to Rich, denying women their sexuality by means of punishment is another method by which “male power is manifested and maintained” (1596).  After the ocean incident, the uncle is angry with the grandmother for allowing the girls to interact in a potentially sexual way with the young men. The grandmother keeps trying to reassure him that they have done nothing wrong to which he replies, “If they’re sullied it’s your fault!” (Ergüven). Thus, the sister’s sexuality is deemed to be under the control of the uncle and the grandmother and not the young women themselves.  Foucault discusses the modern invention of institutions that discipline the body. He mentions a French prison named Mettray as an early model for these types of institutions. He explains that one of the hierarchical models in which inmates were divided at Mettray was a ‘family’ structure. The prison’s task was “to produce bodies that were docile and capable” using family models among others (1491).  In a similar way, the sister’s family hierarchy is an institution that controls their bodies. Their grandmother is expected to produce docile young women that adhere to patriarchal norms. The grandmother reassures the uncle that the sisters are still virgins despite their play in the ocean by saying “I’ll prove it to you” (Ergüven). Again, it is the grandmother and uncle’s decision to subject the three older sisters Ece, Sonay, and Selma to a “virginity report,” which is a direct violation of their bodies.  According to the article “Virginity Examinations in Turkey: Role of Forensic Physicians in Controlling Female Sexuality” these tests are “gynecologic examinations that attempt to correlate the status of the hymen with the occurrence of sexual intercourse” because “rupture of the hymen is considered evidence of loss of virginity” (Frank). This article also goes onto to assert that “premarital female virginity is considered an important social norm that may serve to control women's behavior” (Frank). Thus, at the beginning of the film it is established that the young women do not have much control over their own person due to the patriarchal control that the authority figures in their life exert over them in a prison-like fashion.

Another demonstration of how male patriarchy maintains control over women is conveyed in the film through the uncle’s molestation of Nur. The film tackles this somewhat delicately by not showing any actual molestation, but strongly implying it. Lale sees the uncle quietly sneaking into Nur’s room at night, and then the next scene cuts to Lale waking up to her grandmother and uncle arguing. The grandmother exclaims “What were you doing? I asked you a question! Stop that! Stop it right now!” (Ergüven). This scene makes it clear that the uncle feels he has complete control over the sisters, which includes sexual access to them. Rich describes this type of behavior as forcing male sexuality upon women by means of rape or incest (1549). Rich sees this as another form of power that men hold over women to enforce patriarchy.  Their grandmother’s reaction to the molestation only serves to reinforce this power structure. Their grandmother does not turn their uncle into the authorities despite being appalled by his actions. Instead she begins plans to arrange a marriage for Nur since she, “is a young woman now” (Ergüven).  The grandmother is again acting as an agent of patriarchy and using the sisters as “objects in male transactions” (Rich 1595).  She is transferring ownership of the young women’s bodies from the uncle to another male. Their grandmother is not encouraging the girls to embrace any personal control. Dworkin explains the behavior of women like this in her speech “Terror, Torture, and Resistance.” She discusses how some women accept as a basic premise of life that women are “things” that must be sexually pleasing to men to survive. Thus, women in oppressed situations are often brave people, but they use their bravery to make deals that compromise their freedom in the name of survival “instead of fighting the system that forces [women] to make the deal” (Dworkin). An arranged marriage to protect a young woman from rape is an example of this type of “deal.” The grandmother feels she is being brave when she is an active participant in the young women’s oppression.

Ece and Lale both rebel against the patriarchal structure of Turkish society in very different ways. Ece takes control over her body by committing suicide. The scene begins with the three youngest sisters eating dinner with their uncle and grandmother. The uncle is intently watching a television program. The audience does not see the television, only the uncle’s face as he is absorbed in the program. The voice on the television states, “Women must be chaste and pure, know their limits, and mustn’t laugh openly in public, or be provocative with every move. Women must guard their chastity!” (Ergüven).  The faceless man on the television is explicitly encouraging the control over women’s sexuality that Rich has described.  Ece makes fun of the program by putting up her middle finger in front of her face where the other two girls can see, and they all begin giggling. As a result, the uncle demands that Ece leave the table. When she goes into the room, she shoots herself. It is clear that Ece is fed up with the patriarchal attitude of both her uncle and the surrounding society. She feels that the only way she can exert control over her own being is to end her life. Ultimately, Lale exerts control over her situation, much like Ece did, but in a much more constructive way. At the end of the film, on what is supposed to be Nur’s wedding day, Lale initiates a daring escape from the house with Nur. She locks the entire wedding party out of the house while her uncle bangs angrily on the doors and windows trying to get in. The two girls manage to escape and eventually make it the more cosmopolitan city of Istanbul where they find their female school teacher and show up at her door.  Lale’s daring escape echoes the words of Dworkin in “Terror, Torture, and Resistance” when she says: “ I'm asking you to fight…I'm not asking you to get caught. I'm asking you to escape. I'm asking you to run for your life” (Dworkin). Dworkin is encouraging women trapped in violent and oppressive situations to stand up for themselves through escape rather than death, and this is exactly what Lale does. Lale exerts ultimate control over her body by getting away from both her uncle and the arranged marriage. She does not compromise her freedom by allowing herself to be transferred to another male in order to avoid molestation from her uncle. She then seeks out the help of an educated woman in a metropolitan city as her final act of defiance in the film.

It is clear that Ergüven wanted to discuss feminist issues with her film Mustang. Ergüven explains in an interview that she “had long had an abstract desire to tackle the question of what it is to be a woman in Turkey” (Cooke). Ergüven brilliantly conveys a powerful message regarding the enforcement of patriarchy through control over women’s bodies. These ideas are reminiscent of the work of great writers like Foucault, Rich, and Dworkin. A mustang is a wild free-roaming horse, and the film’s title acts as a symbol for the free spirits of the sisters that authority figures attempt to tame throughout the film. However, at least two of the sisters are able to break free from their oppression thanks to the untamable strength of the youngest sister Lale. This strength is a powerful role model for women dealing with oppression that encourages them to fight and to escape. 

Works Cited

Bordo, Susan, and Monica Udvardy. "Body, The." New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, edited by Maryanne Cline Horowitz, vol. 1, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2005, pp. 230-238. Gale Virtual Reference Library, Accessed 11 Dec. 2016.

Cooke, Rachel. “Deniz Gamze Ergüven: 'For Women in Turkey It's like the Middle Ages'.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 15 May 2016.

Darity, William A."Patriarchy." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2nd ed., vol. 6, Macmillan Reference USA, 2008, pp. 173-174. Gale Virtual Reference Library, Accessed 11 Dec. 2016.

Dworkin, Andrea. “Terror, Torture, and Resistance.”Canadian Woman Studies/Les Cahiers de la Femme, fall 1991, Volume 12, Number 1.

Dönmez, Adile Sedef. "Mustang (2015)." Nidaba 1.1 (2016): 84. journals.lub.lu.se/ojs/index.php/nidaba/article/download/15853/14340

Ergüven, Deniz Gamze, director. Mustang. Cohen Media Group, 2015.

Frank MW, Bauer HM, Arican N, Korur Fincanci S, Iacopino V. “Virginity Examinations in Turkey: Role of Forensic Physicians in Controlling Female Sexuality”. JAMA. 1999; 282(5):485-490, 

Foucault, Michel. “Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.” The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism. Ed. Peter Simon. 2nd ed, New York: W.W. Norton, 2010. Print.

Schafer, Elizabeth D. "Mustangs." Dictionary of American History, edited by Stanley I. Kutler, 3rd ed., vol. 5, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003, p. 504.

Özman, AylIn. "Turkey." Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures, edited by Suad Joseph, vol. 2: Family, Law and Politics, Brill Academic Publishers, 2005, pp. 670-671. Gale Virtual Reference Library.

France-Presse, Agence. “Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: 'A woman is above all else a mother.'” The Guardian News and Media Inc.

Rich, Adrienne. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.”The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism. Ed. Peter Simon. 2nd ed, New York: W.W. Norton, 2010. Print.