June 2006

I’m home again (mid-tour leave)…visiting my wife, Cindy, (step)daughter, Jessica, and granddaughter, Kameran, in Alabama. I flew in on Tuesday and they were all there to meet me in the airport. Jess took off from school that afternoon, and what a pleasant surprise (she’s a single mom and just incredible…a very courageous woman, making a life for her and her daughter–she’s an inspiration).

I was very happy to see Cindy. We spent the first couple of nights at a golf resort here in town. It was our anniversary and it was nice to get away and spend the time together.

This weekend we went to visit my kids, Nick and Neil (they live about a hour from here). We spent Saturday together, went to a movie (The DaVinci Code) and to dinner afterward. We had coffee in a bookstore before departing. We’ll visit again before my mid-tour is over.

Now we’re home again and Cindy is reading her email, Jess is painting Kameran’s toenails and I’m watching “For Love of the Game” and drinking a glass of Pinot Noir. Life is wonderful.

This evening I watched “The War Lover,” starring Steve McQueen, Robert Wagner and Shirley Anne Field. A movie, based on the novel by John Hersey, tells the tale of Buzz Rickson (Steve McQueen), a WWII B-17 pilot who lives for the action associated with the war. The character is typical Steve McQueen–loner, rebellious and insubordinate. His daredevil antics and brazen heroics make him both respected and feared. The aerial footage is spectacular and the special effects are very good considering the movie was released in 1962.

While watching the movie I cracked open a bottle of Merlot and nibbled on some cheese and crackers. This dry red wine tasted of plums and blackberries with a very soft mouthfeel. It was soft and plump just as one would expect of a Merlot. The wine was the perfect accent for the pasta I made for dinner–angel hair spaghetti with an Italian sausage sauce–about halfway through the movie.

In the Afterward to the novel, “Children of the Mind,” Orson Scott Card explores the concept of Edge Nations and Center Nations. This concept provides insight into the mechanics of change. In understanding the relationship between edge and center nations (or peoples), one can study and predict, and embrace or combat change. In the novel, Card explains that edge nations are unstable, are drawn to conquest and expansion, but overextend themselves and seldom last long. Center nations, on the other hand, are stable, long lasting, and only conquer to ensure stability and protect the homeland. They show no tendency to go out and conquer the world because they think they already possess within their borders everything that is important. (Card: 364-365)

Card makes some noteworthy observations about edge people, center people, their characteristics and their relationship to one another. He writes that center people do not fear losing their identity and that they assume everyone else wants to be like them. They know that they are the highest civilization and all others are either a bad imitation or simply a one-time mistake. Of edge people he observes that they realize they are not the highest civilization but will often raid, steal, conquer and occasionally stick around to rule for a while. Sometimes they undergo radical changes in order to compete. “When they are on the rise,” he says, “they are insufferable because they are unsure of their worth and must therefore brag and show off and prove themselves again and again…” (Card: 364)

Card was not the first to suggest the idea of edge and center nations. Johan Galtung, a professor at the University of Oslo, argued in 1971 that the world can be divided up into two sections, the Center and the Periphery. Center nations, he implies, are the developed world, like the United States and the United Kingdom. Periphery nations are developing nations, such as sub-Saharan African nations, Caribbean nations and many Latin American states as well. Galtung views world international economic and political affairs along a system of imperialism, an implicit dominant relationship of the Center over the Periphery–this theory is known as Structural Theory, or Dependency Theory. It requires that Periphery nations be dependent on the Center nation(s), and that the nature of this relationship is fixed and permanent. Periphery nations can hope to, at best, alter the degree of this dependency, but the fundamental relationship will remain (Galtung: 81).

In his dialogue, Card reflects on historic “edge peoples” and how many of them swept through a dominant culture, often taking power for a time and then exiting, but leaving behind a profound and long lasting influence. He cites examples of this phenomenon: The Arabs conquering of the Romans; the Turks into the heart of the Muslim world; and the Mongols who united long enough to conquer China (Card: 363).

From a historical perspective, there have only been a handful of “center peoples.” Egypt was a center nation until being conquered by the Alexander the Great and the edge nation of Greece in the 4th century BC (Wiki: Alexander, n.p.). Still, Egypt maintained much of its “centeredness” until being virtually erased by Islam (Card: 363). Another example is China, a center nation until the conquest of the Mongols in the 13th century AD. The Mongols, led by Genghis Kahn, ruled China for more than 100 years (Wiki: Mongol, n.p.). The Mongols, under Kublai Khan, established the Yuan Dynasty and was eventually overthrown (Wiki: China, n.p.). Considering the Yuan Dynasty was responsible for building the Forbidden City, an important part of modern Chinese culture, it would appear that more than a military coup it was Chinese “centeredness” that eventually absorbed the Mongols into itself. The reign of the Mongols was simply an interlude in the development of a superior Chinese culture. This is the key to perpetuating the rule of a center nation.

Consider the United States, arguably the strongest center nation in the world today. An interesting experiment, the United States was built by edge people–refugees from other center and edge nations:

American culture is a Western culture, with influences from Europe, the Native American peoples, African Americans and to a lesser extent Asian Americans and other young groups of immigrants. The United States has traditionally been known as a melting pot, with a trend towards cultural diversity. Due to the extent of American culture there are many integrated but unique subcultures within the United States (Wiki: Culture, n.p.)

Proud of its mantle of “melting pot,” essentially the United States obtained its center by incorporating the sum of its edges. It was the ideas of these edge peoples that defined the values of the nation. However, in order to perpetuate its rule the United States has, over the last two centuries, constantly bent to the will of those who chose to remain on the edge. This has been beneficial to the country, for example, the emancipation proclamation freed the slaves and suffrage gave women the right to vote, and history has confirmed the “rightness” of these changes. This isn’t always the case.

In the contemplation of “rightness” and “wrongness,” one must consider the intent of the original framers of the country’s values. When one considers slavery, the determination of wrongness is a simple one, but what about an issue of today, such as illegal immigration? Actually, the determination of wrongness is again a simple one, but the issue is clouded by the agendas of edge peoples. These edge-peoples include politicians who seek benefit at the polls on election day and farmers who enjoy the benefit of cheap labor. The actions (or inactions) of these edge peoples lead to increased crime and welfare in our country (Wiki: Illegal, n.p.). As a result, the center peoples sacrifice security and fund the care and feeding of the illegal immigrants. The edge peoples are effectively changing the values of this nation and restructuring the country to fit the edge image.

This is the same thing that happened to Egypt when Islam shattered its centeredness. It was the Muslim Arabs who introduced Islam and the Arabic language in the seventh century to the Egyptians, who gradually adopted both (Wiki: Egypt, n.p.). Islam means “submission” and requires an Islamic government (Gabriel: 23), which virtually wiped-out the Egyptian culture in a relatively short period of time. Still this required the consent of the Egyptians because as an edge nation, the Islamic Arabs were dependent (for a time) on the support of the center nation of Egypt (Galtung: 81).

When considering the concept of edge and center peoples, it isn’t hard to understand the fate that befell Egypt could easily fall upon the United States. In fact a similar cultural conversion is taking place in the United States and although at a much slower rate, it is much more insidious. We must guard against the agendas of the edge peoples among us and fight their assault on our values. If we’re to remain a nation of right, we must be willing to fight–and die–in the battle against wrong. Unfortunately, there are not enough of us left who truly believe in what is right.

1. Card, Orson Scott. “Children of the Mind.” Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, 1996.
2. Gabriel, John. “Islam and Terrorism: What the Quran Really Teaches About Christianity, Violence and the Goals of the Islamic Jihad.” Charisma House, 2002.
3. Galtung, Johan. “A Structural Theory of Imperialism,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1971).
4. Wikipedia. “Alexander the Great.” Internet, June 4, 2006. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander
5. Wikipedia. “China.” Internet, June 4, 2006. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China
6. Wikipedia. “Culture of the United States.” Internet, June 4, 2006. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_the_United_States
7. Wikipedia. “Mongols.” Internet, June 4, 2006. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol

Edgar Allen Poe is arguably the best read author of nineteenth century America. His tales of horror and the macabre often border on the perverse and certainly illustrate the dark side of man. One of his recurring themes is found in the duality of his characters. He used characters’ dual nature to contrast and punctuate the aspects of conscience–good versus evil, sanity versus insanity, or both. In the short stories, “William Wilson,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Poe uses the duality theme to provide insight into a character’s conscience. This theme is best illustrated in “William Wilson.”

In the short story, “William Wilson,” Poe presents one character in the form of two–a dual personality. When the story begins, William Wilson meets a man who happens to have the same name, was born on the same day, is of equal height, and who also bears strikingly similar features to his own (Poe 356-360). This is his “doppelganger.” They also arrive at Dr. Bransby’s Academy on the same day (Poe 357). The only difference between the two is that Wilson’s double can’t speak “above a very low whisper” (Poe 358)–perhaps just a voice in Wilson’s head. Poe illustrates Wilson’s doppelganger as an extension of his (Wilson) conscience by his (doppelganger) “impertinent and dogged interference with [Wilson's] purposes” (Poe 357).

The doppelganger’s constant thwarting of Wilson’s pranks and schemes sparks a slowly smoldering hatred in Wilson. To get even he devises a plan to carry out a prank intended to “make him (doppelganger) feel the whole extent of [my] malice” (Poe 362). However, as Wilson puts the plan into effect and draws back the draperies to look upon the sleeping doppelganger, he is “possessed with an objectless yet tolerable horror” (Poe 362), for the person he gazed upon was himself. This was too much for Wilson because he fled the Academy and never returned. Wilson’s rejection of his conscience fueled three years of “miserable profligacy” (Poe 363) while studying at Eton College.

While at Eton, Wilson plunged into a “vortex of thoughtless folly” that “washed away all but the froth of [his] past…” (Poe 363). This “mental cleansing” eliminated the control Wilson’s doppelganger had over him–albeit briefly. For at the conclusion of “a week of soulless dissipation,” Wilson invited a group of “dissolute students” to his apartment and their “Debaucheries” lasted until morning (Poe 363). During this moment of intoxicated weakness and depravity, Wilson’s doppelganger arrives and announces his return by whispering the words “William Wilson” into Wilson’s ear. Apparently, the doppelganger left the Branby Academy on the “afternoon of the day” (Poe 365) that Wilson left. However, Wilson was again able to gain control over his doppelganger by focusing on a transfer to Oxford University (Poe 365).

Wilson’s hedonistic antics continued as he “broke fourth with redoubled ardor, and…spurned even the common restraints of decency in the mad infatuation of [his] revels” (Poe 365). This ushers the return of Wilson’s doppelganger who foils Wilson’s scheme to cheat a nobleman, Lord Glendinning, at cards. At the conclusion of the game when Wilson has seen his plan come to fruition and the nobleman indicates he is destitute, Wilson’s doppelganger arrives. In the “low, distinct, and never-to-be-forgotten whisper” says, “Gentlemen, I make an apology for this behavior, because in thus behaving I am fulfilling a duty. You are, beyond doubt, uninformed of the true character of the person who has tonight won at [cards] a large sum of money from Lord Glendinning…Please to examine, at your leisure, the inner linings of the cuff of his steve, and the several little packages which may be found in the somewhat capacious pockets of his embroidered [coat]” (Poe 368). The doppelganger leaves as abruptly as he arrived and Wilson is seized by the members of the card game. Within the lining of his coat they find the proof of his cheating (Poe 368-369). Wilson is summarily dismissed from Oxford.

After leaving Oxford, Wilson moves to the Continent and from there to Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Moscow, and Rome. His doppelganger follows him every step of the way and only appears to “…frustrate [his] schemes, or to disturb those actions, which, if carried out, might have resulted in bitter mischief” (Poe 370).

In Rome we find the mystery of William Wilson and his doppelganger unraveled. Attending a masquerade party in the palace of the Neapolitan Duke Di Broglio, Wilson has “indulged more freely than usual in the excesses of the wine table” (Poe 372). This makes him irritable and the stuffiness of the room and difficulty forcing his way through the crowd only exacerbates his temper because he was “anxiously seeking (…with [an] unworthy motive) the young, the gay, the beautiful wife of the aged and doting Di Broglio” (Poe 372). As he approached the woman, he “felt a light hand placed upon [his] shoulder, and that ever-remembered, low, damnable whisper within [his] ear” (Poe 372). With the interruption of his latest scheme, Wilson snaps and “in an absolute frenzy of wrath, …turned at once upon him who thus interrupted [him]…” and finding the doppelganger clothed similarly to him, he shouts, “Scoundrel! …Impostor! Accused villain! You shall not–you shall not dog me unto death!” (Poe 372). Wilson drags the doppelganger “unresistingly” (Poe 372) into a small antechamber adjoining the ballroom where he stabs him(self) repeatedly with a knife (Poe 373).

In the final words of the story, the duality of William Wilson is substantiated. His conscience in the form of the doppelganger as gotten the best of him. We find the doppelganger delivers Wilson’s epitaph as “he spoke no longer in a whisper, and [Wilson] could have fancied that [he] was speaking while he said: “You have conquered and I yield. Yet henceforward art thou also dead–dead to the World, to Heaven, and to Hope! In me didst thou exist–and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself” (Poe 373).

In his critical analysis, “That Spectre in My Path: Poe’s Doppelganger As Revealed in ‘William Wilson,’ ‘The Cask of Amontillado,’ and ‘The Man in the Crowd’,” David Grantz poses that “contemplation of conscience and of evil beyond inculcated religious context can be problematic since religious code commonly resides at the core of one’s belief system (Grantz 1). However, in “William Wilson” Poe didn’t portend any religious significance. Grantz says that the story reveals merely “conscience stripped bare” (Grantz 1). Tying the concept of duality into the world of the perverse, Grantz goes on to say that the essence of William Wilson and his doppelganger “indicate that they [are]…a double entity corresponding to Poe’s expanded, and therefore ‘unnatural’ universe” and by employing the concept of duality to “expose the conscience…brings to fruition the dissolutionary agent of perversity” (Grantz 5). Grantz ties the perverse to conscience by noting that “if perverse impulses go unchecked, they can portend psychological collapse” (Grantz 5)–just as we experienced in “William Wilson.” Another example of the duality theme is found in the short story, “The Cask of Amontillado.”

In this story, Poe uses two men to represent one conscience. In the story, the narrator, Montressor, lures his nemesis, Fortunado, through winding catacombs where he entraps him and leaves him to die. Montressor is angry with Fortunado for some unnamed insult and , playing on his vanity, entices him into the caverns in the hope of verifying that a cask of Amontillado is genuine. Montressor finds Fortunado at a festival and waiting until he is very drunk dupes him into the catacombs. However, instead of finding the cask of wine, Fortunado finds his death. In his drunken state, Montressor easily shackles Fortunado to the wall in a small niche and bricks him in. All in all a rather simple tale of horror and revenge (Poe 7-14).

The story is simple until we examine it a little closer. Daniel Hoffman, in his book, “Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe,” tells us that the names “Montressor” and “Fortunado” are synonymous (Hoffman 223). The fact that Poe chose synonymous names for his characters suggests that they are two sides of the same person. David Grantz offers this explanation:

“Montressor has become so alienated from his physical reality that he must murder that side of himself. The fact that Fortunado easily succumbs to the pleasures of the flesh would seem to reinforce the view that Montressor and Fortunado constitute another of Poe’s divided personalities; they are actually one person divided against itself” (Grantz 6).

If this is the case, Montressor would represent the conservative side of conscience and Fortunado, drunkenness and vanity. Perhaps the “unnamed insult” is simply Fortunado’s tendency to indulge in the pleasures of the flesh. This would mean, as Grantz suggests, Fortunado represents “the fool in [Montressor]” and the voice that speaks to us, the story’s narrator, arises from the grave and is confessing his suicide” (Grantz 6). Our final example of Poe’s use of duality theme is within the House of Usher.

In the short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Poe chooses the bond between twin brother and sister to illustrate the demise of a once-great family. Roderick and Madeline Usher are the last remaining Ushers. Both brother and sister are suffering from a strange illness that may have something to do with the intermarriage practice of their family. “…[T]he stem of the Usher race…had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain” (Poe 82). Interestingly enough, the twin’s illness have contrasting effects. Roderick suffers from “a morbid acuteness of the senses” (Poe 86); while Madeline is plagued by “a settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of a partly cataleptical character…” (Poe 87) which causes her to lose consciousness and feeling. The body would then assume a deathlike rigidity, which ultimately led to her premature burial.

The health of the family is also somehow tied to the family mansion, the actual physical structure, the House of Usher, which contained “a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in the front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn” (Poe 82). Poe consistently refers to both the mansion and the twins as “the House of Usher.”

At the story’s end we find Roderick in his chamber with his friend. The friend is trying to calm Roderick by reading to him. It’s been seven or eight days since Madeline was placed in the vault. A huge storm raged outside. Suddenly, “…from some remote portion of the mansion, there came indistinctly to [their] ears what might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo” (Poe 97-98) of wood being ripped and cracked. Alarmed, the friend leaps to his feet, while Roderick turns his chair to face the door. Hysterical, Roderick exclaims, “We have placed [Madeline] living in the tomb” and the sound they heard was “the rending of her coffin…the grating of the iron hinges of her prison…[and her] struggles within the copper archway of the vault” (Poe 100). Due to his acute senses, Roderick can feel the presence of his sister outside the door to his chamber and with a gust of wind, the door swings open and there she stands. Flinging herself on Roderick, she “bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim of the terrors he had anticipated” (Poe 101). Fleeing the mansion, the friend looks back and witnesses the once barely perceptible fissure rapidly widen and bring the structure crumbling down (Poe 101).

The duality theme is obviously manifest in the twins, Roderick and Madeline Usher. In her critical analysis, “Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’,” Martha Womack suggests that “Roderick and Madeline are not just twins but represent the mental and physical components of a single being or soul…” (Womack 4). She also points out that the twins share “…’sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature’ which connect [Roderick's] mental disintegration to [Madeline's] physical decline” (Womack 4). Tying the mansion to the state of the twins, Womack suggests that “[t]he crack in the Usher mansion…symbolically suggests a flaw or fundamental split in the twin personality of Roderick and Madeline…” (Womack 4).

Another clue is found in the poem “The Haunted Palace” which serves as a description for Roderick’s house. Just below the surface resides Poe’s symbolic portrayal of the head, and ultimately, the mind of Roderick. The symbols have contained within: the eye-like windows; “the fair palace door;” describing Roderick’s mouth from which in the “old time” had issued forth “voices of surpassing beauty,” but now only “the laughter of a jangling and discordant mind” (Wilber 106). At some point the House of Usher, the mind of Roderick was invaded by “evil things” (Poe 91)–perhaps the cause of the split personality. Described in the poem’s final stanza is the decay that manifests both on the physical description of the House of Usher and in the decline of the palace of Roderick’s mind.

Womack clarifies this by suggesting that “Roderick represents the mind or the intellect, while the portion of personality that we refer to as the senses (hearing, seeing, touching, tasting and smelling) is represented by Madeline. During the course of the story, the intellect (Roderick) tries to detach itself from its more physically oriented twin (Madeline)…Living without Madeline (that is without the senses), Roderick’s condition deteriorates…” (Womack 5). When the story ends, Madeline returns from the grave to claim her brother who is mad. “As the two are reunited in death (the mind can neither live nor die without its physical counterpart, the senses), the house (a symbol of a now deranged individual) crumbles…” (Womack 5).

The conscience can be tied to Roderick’s “…intolerable agitation of the soul” (Poe 86) as he plunges into madness. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the “soul” as “the moral and emotional nature of human beings; [a] spiritual or moral force” (Merriam-Webster). Conscience is defines as “the sense or consciousness of the moral goodness or blameworthiness of one’s own conduct, intentions, or character together with a feeling of obligation to do right or be good”(Merriam-Webster). Therefore, the conscience is the sense of right and the soul is the force that compels it. Roderick’s soul, directed by conscience, repaired a mind torn asunder by a split personality. The repair unfortunately resulted in Roderick’s death.

The themes in the short stories and poems of Edgar Allen Poe can be interrupted in many ways and on many different levels. One recurring theme was that of the duality–the dual nature–of man. In the short stories, “William Wilson,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Poe uses the duality theme to provide insight into a character’s conscience. This duality was often the result of a conflict of conscience–doing good versus doing evil or the maintenance of sanity.

1. Grantz, Davis. “That Spectre in My Path: Poe’s Doppelganger As Revealed in ‘William Wilson,’ ‘The Cask of Amontillado,’ and ‘The Man in the Crowd’,” The Poe Decoder, n.p. On-line. Internet, March 4, 2001. Available from http://www.poedecoder.com/essays/spectre/
2. Hoffman, Daniel. Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1972.
3. Merrian-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. n.p. On-line. Internet, April 20, 2001. Available from http://www.m-w.com/
4. Poe, Edgar Allen. Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe. New Your, New York: Washington Square Press, 1950.
5. Wilbur, Richard. “The House of Poe.” Poe: A Collection of ritical Essays, (Robert Regen, ed.). Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967.
6. Womack, Martha. “Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’.” The Poe Decoder, n.p. On-line. Internet, March 4, 2001. Available from http://www.poedecoder.com/essays/usher/