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Been thinking of Miss Havisham from Great Expectations this morning and how she relates to the American situation.
Once a beautiful and vivacious lady, she enters the story as a zombie, kept alive only by her desires to spread her pain and taste revenge.
Once a beautiful and vivacious lady, she enters the story as a zombie, kept alive only by her desires to spread her pain and taste revenge.
She has turned her grand home into a ruin by keeping it as a museum of the worst day in her life. Her visitors must feast their eyes on her rotting wedding dress and cake.
Not content with the crumbling legacy of her museum, she takes on orphans as special projects and heirs.
They believe they are to inherit her fortunes but their true inheritance is her pathology of grievance.
They believe they are to inherit her fortunes but their true inheritance is her pathology of grievance.
The America obsessed with its original sin of racism (with colonialism and sexism and other isms of oppression riding on its coattails) bears a striking resemblance to the world Miss Havisham creates for her charges.
We live in the ruins of our past. We feast on the carcass of Jim Crow. We wear antebellum rags.
Our games and entertainments are morality plays in which we all must play our part.
Some of us are the Pips. We bear the image of the oppressor. We must be made to feel the pain our predecessors caused.
Some of us are the Pips. We bear the image of the oppressor. We must be made to feel the pain our predecessors caused.
Others are Estellas. They bear the image of the oppressed. They must study the old wounds so they can rise and avenge them.
None of us are allowed to move on lest the sacred trauma lose its present tense. The ruins must remain, the dysfunction must be passed on.
And no one dares stop playing because there's so much money and status at stake.
And no one dares stop playing because there's so much money and status at stake.
