Wingate Research Review
Editor:
John Sykes
Production Editor:
Joshua Fisher
Editorial Advisory Board:
Keith Cannon
Alison Dixon
Traci Gearhart
Dennis Harlow
Caroline Hoefferle
Beth Murray
Kelly Trindel
2
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
Contents
Dr. John Sykes
3
4
Essays
Brown, the New Black: African
Americans, Latinos, and the Latinization
of Union and Mecklenburg Counties
Katie Case
5
Like a Flower: Tennyson’s The Princess
and the Language of Flowers
Sydni Canada
27
Alan Rowe
Brenton Smith
Dr. Heather
Voegtle
44
Protesting Angels in America: Political
Machinations Disguised as Morality
Katlyn Brahmer
54
The Development and Use of the Dies
Irae
Jason Barrios
72
Adam Raskoskie
80
Foreword to the Inaugural Issue
Contributors
Advances in the Synthesis of 4Hydroxymellein
Psychoanalysis and the Yeshiva:
Cultural Cores, Criticism, and Creativity
in the Novels of Chaim Potok
Jonathan
Redding
100
Outracing History: Auto Racing Facts
and Myths in Charlotte, North Carolina
Michael Antonucci
113
A Woman’s Heart in The Tale of Genji
Wade Love
135
Modeling Enrollment Decisions for
Wingate University Applicants
Rebecca
Dalrymple
147
Theological Reflections on Lying
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
3
Foreword to the Inaugural Issue
In the spring of 2009, Professor Robert Doak of the English
Department suggested to Vice President for Academic Affairs
Martha Asti that Wingate University publish an undergraduate
research journal. Dr. Asti decided that such a venture would
indeed enhance student research efforts. Already, Wingate
offers highly motivated students the opportunity to collaborate
with faculty on summer research projects across many
disciplines. Wingate also hosts a research forum every spring in
which students present their findings from a wide range of
academic projects in a daylong event. This journal is intended to
complement such efforts by providing a showcase for the best
written work to emerge from advanced seminars and Honors
theses, as well as from funded research efforts. Nine months
after the initial administrative conversation, the first issue is a
reality.
The production of the journal itself has been a collaborative
venture between faculty and students. Dr. Joshua Fisher invited
the students in his desktop publishing class to submit cover
designs. The results were impressive, making the choice of
covers for the first issue a difficult one. Those familiar with
Wingate’s campus will recognize that the stone archway in the
blended photograph is not to be found on our grounds. Brittany
Morgan’s image is meant to suggest that the journal is a kind of
scholarly frame for the Wingate University we see, represented
by the familiar Stegall Administration Building visible through
the arch.
Those of us who have worked on this project—the faculty
editorial advisory board, editors, and student authors and
designers—hope that readers will recognize the quality of work
that often goes unnoticed outside the classroom, library, or
laboratory.
John Sykes, Editor
4
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
Contributors
Michael Antonucci, a history major, wrote his essay with the
guidance of Dr. Robert Billinger.
Jason Barrios is a music major. He originally submitted his paper
to Dr. Ronald Bostic.
Katlyn Brahmer majored in history and conducted her research in
consultation with Dr. Robert Billinger.
Sydni Canada was a double major in English and history. Her
essay was written under the direction of Dr. Brooke Mitchell.
Katie Case, a history major, worked with Dr. Robert Billinger.
Rebecca Dalrymple based her paper on work she did with Dr.
Barry Cuffe as part of a Wingate University Summer Research project.
Wade Love is a history major. However, his submission came out
of an English class project directed by Ms. Courtney Wooten.
Adam Raskoskie majored in English. He wrote his paper in
partial fulfillment of the requirements for the University Honors
Program.
Jonathan Redding graduated with a B.A. in religious studies. He
originally submitted his paper to Dr. Robert Prevost.
Alan Rowe majored in mathematics. He collaborated with Dr.
Heather Voegtle in a Wingate University Summer Research Project that
provided the research for the paper he co-authored.
Brenton Smith majored in chemistry. He collaborated with Dr.
Heather Voegtle in a Wingate University Summer Research Project that
provided the research for the paper he co-authored.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
5
Katie Case
Brown, the New Black: African Americans,
Latinos, and the Latinization of Union and
Mecklenburg Counties

Chairs in an empty discussion room encircle an
open space. The door opens, and as the participants file in
an ethnic pattern becomes evident. African Americans and
Latinos fill the room evenly, intermixing as if there have
never been any problems between the two groups. The
session facilitator, Eric Law, starts the dialogue by asking
the question, “What makes a person’s identity?” Law
knows that being Black shapes a person’s identity, as does
being considered Hispanic or Latino. 1 Law is trying to
breach the barrier of assumptions that Blacks and Latinos
have about each other by bringing beliefs out in the open.
This session is intended to be a tool for helping the Blacks
and Latinos in the room to look past the assumptions and
stereotypes of race and see each other as human beings.
Only by being completely honest with each other can the
two groups hope to achieve his goal. After his opening
question, the facilitator asks a more difficult one: “What
are the assumptions that each group makes about the
other’s identity?” Where does the truth lie, and how do the
stereotypes cover up the truth? 2 These questions as well as
many others were covered at the African American/Latino
Unity Summit organized by the Latin American Coalition of
Charlotte/Mecklenburg County. The Coalition serves
Latino families with educational, advocacy and cultural
programs to help them better assimilate into their
communities and reap the full benefits the greater Charlotte
1
Eric Law, African American/Latino Summit Facilitator, 28 March
2009.
2
Ibid.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
6
area has to offer. 3 One significant problem for these
families is conflict between Blacks and Latinos, and this
session is designed to help break down the stereotypes that
create barriers between the two groups. 4
Now, imagine working in a sweltering poultry plant
surrounded by chicken pieces as your fingers start to cramp
up from hours of slicing and dicing the dead fowl for the
commercial purposes of the United States’ food industry.
You are doing this work for a meager wage because you are
an immigrant, and you are expendable. 5 This is life for
3
African American/Latino Unity Summit Biographical Information
handout. Sponsored by the Latin American Coalition of Charlotte, 28
March 2009. Interviews from Angeles-Ortega Moore, Candida Quiroz,
and Sandra Stanton were taken from this event.
4
For the use of this research I will use the term Latino to refer to
persons from Spanish-speaking nations, primarily Mexico, and Central
and South America. Black and African American will be used
interchangeably. Also, I will be focusing a main portion on the
Mexican immigrants to these counties due to the fact they constitute the
largest portion of Latino immigrants, at 77%. This has been collected
from the 2000 Census.
5
Franco Ordonez and Ames Alexander, “The Cruelest Cuts First of
Two Parks-Hard Labor at a Tender Age Raid At Poultry Plant Reveals
Problem Beyond Illegal Immigration,” Charlotte Observer, 9
November 2008, The (NC) STATE ed., 1A. Retrieved February 7,
2009 from NewsBank on-line database (America’s Newspapers) on the
World Wide Web: <http://infoweb.newsbank.com>.
Daniel Rader, “Deep Divisions, Shared Destiny-A Poll of Black,
Hispanic, and Asian Americans on Race Relations” (12 December
2007)
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=2
8501933d0e5c5344b21f9640dc13754 (accessed 19 February 2009).
5
Stella M. Eisele, “Harvesting A Living Far From Home,” Charlotte
Observer, 16 July 1995, The (NC) ONE-FOUR ed., 1D. Retrieved
February 7, 2009 from NewsBank on-line database (America’s
Newspapers) on the World Wide Web:
<http://infoweb.newsbank.com>.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
7
thousands of Mexican immigrants who have come to North
Carolina seeking the available jobs in meat and poultry
industries as well as farming. 6 Right now, about 90 percent
of farm laborers in North Carolina are Latinos. 7 However,
in taking these jobs, Latinos have displaced Blacks. The
farming, meatpacking, and poultry industries were once
major sources of blue-collar Black jobs, and since Latinos
started dominating the workforces of these industries,
tension has been created between the two groups. Frank
Morris, a former director of the Congressional Black
Caucus Foundation, states, “as long as there is an available
labor supply, [immigrants] will be preferred to African
Americans.” 8 Tensions created over job competition have
thus trickled into many other areas, feeding upon
preconceptions and distrust.
One example of conflict between the ethnic groups
took place at Smithfield packing plant (the largest hog
butchering plant in the world) in Tar Heel, North Carolina
in 2000. 9 There was a racial standoff in a plant where
Latino workers made up more than 60 percent of the plant’s
Raymond A. Mohl, “Globalization, Latinization, and the Nuevo New
South,” 22:4 Journal of American Ethnic History (2003): 422-423.
7
Ibid.
8
Jorge G. Castañeda, Ex Mex From Migrants to Immigrants (New
York: The New Press, 2007), 10.
Lilly Rockwell, “Rifts Among African Americans Over Immigration:
Immigration Debate Exposes Tensions Between Blacks and Latinos” (6
May 2006) http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/press/austin_may06.shtml
(accessed 11 April 2009).
9
Marc Goumbri, “Blacks, Latinos Mount Union Drive in North
Carolina” (7 May 2007)
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=2
ba158557618d51203a304f247a615dc (accessed 19 February 2009).
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
8
workforce. The Black workforce came to resent them for
keeping the wages low. 10 Also, employers at the plant used
this racial tension as a means to keep the workers from
unionizing; they kept Black workers in a different section
of the plant from the Latino workers. 11 This was also the
case at Case Farms in Morganton, NC, but that story had a
different ending. 12
Between the years of 1995 and 1999, North
Carolina saw the largest increase of Mexican immigration
in the entire country with an increase of 73 percent. 13 With
the influx of Latino immigrants since 1995, the Black
community has seen mounting job competition as well as
the arrival of a completely new type of neighbor in its
neighborhoods. Black-on-Latino violence is not as
widespread in North Carolina as it is in Los Angeles, yet it
10
11
Ibid.
Ibid.
12
Leon Fink. They Maya of Morganton: Work and Community in the
Nuevo New South (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina
Press, 2003), 200. Fink is a professor of Alabama University at
Birmingham also does a general analysis of Hispanic immigration to
the South and expands primarily on North Carolina and Georgia as
having the fastest growing populations.
13
Andrea Walker, “N.C. Immigration Growth Among Highest,”
Charlotte Observer, 18 March 2000, The (NC) ONE-THREE ed., 2B.
Retrieved 7 February, 2009 from NewsBank on-line database
(America’s Newspapers) on the World Wide Web:
<http://infoweb.newsbank.com>.
Mike Torralba, “Growth But 1 of Issues in Monroe-Future Council’s
Agenda: Crime, Immigration and How to Revive Downtown,”
Charlotte Observer, 27 September 2007, The (NC) TWO ed., 1U.
Retrieved February 7, 2009 from NewsBank on-line database
(America’s Newspapers) on the World Wide Web:
<http://infoweb.newsbank.com>.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
9
is exacerbated by gangs in the Charlotte area. 14 Due to this
unrest, many places in North Carolina are promoting
organizations such as Black Workers for Justice, Latin
American Coalition, and the Latino Workers Association.
These associations in turn have created an AfricanAmerican/Latino Alliance in order to quell the racial
tensions. 15
However, racial tensions between the Latino and
Black communities are still prevalent, especially in Union
and Mecklenburg counties. Miscommunication and
misinformation, combined with job competition and white
preferment of Latinos over Blacks, are the primary factors
contributing to the tensions between the Black and Latino
communities in Union and Mecklenburg counties. Among
Blacks this is a blue-collar issue because members of the
working class are much more likely to see Latinos as job
competitors and to take offense at infringement upon
cultural norms such as language use. An analysis of local
newspaper articles and oral interviews with local Black
community leaders in Union and Mecklenburg counties will
reveal this sociopolitical undercurrent that is an obstacle to
the integration of Latino immigrants in this part of North
Carolina.
The arrival of Latinos, especially Mexican
immigrants, may not seem new, but it is new to the
Southeastern region of the United States. Since 1995, an
increasing number of Latinos, primarily Mexicans, have
been crossing the borders into Southern states such as
North Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia. 16 Some, although
14
Steven Malanga, “The Rainbow Coalition Evaporates: Black anger
grows as illegal immigrants transform urban neighborhoods,” City
Journal, 18, no. 1 (Winger 2008)
15
Marc Goumbri, “Blacks, Latinos Mount Union Drive in North
Carolina”
16
Fred Grimm, “Little Towns Get Hispanic Flavor Rapid Immigration
Has Given Foothills Area Instant Diversity,” Charlotte Observer, 21
July 1991, The (NC) ONE-FOUR ed., 6A. Retrieved 7 February, 2009
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
10
not the majority, are also migrating from populous Latino
states such as California and Texas. 17 Latinos are attracted
to North Carolina because of the South’s booming service
economy, which has a high demand for low-wage labor, as
well as affordable homes, good schools, and migrant farm
worker programs. 18 Nearly 50,000 Latino migrant farm
workers come to the Carolinas every year, mostly for the
summer harvest, and about 75 percent come to North
Carolina mainly for the tobacco crops that pay them well. 19
These migrant workers usually fall into two groups—legal
and illegal, but recruiting these workers is a major industry
for the Rural Manpower Service, which depends upon
Latino migrant workers instead of locals who are not as
willing to do the hard work as in past generations. 20 The
majority of Mexicans have been stepping into the shoes of
low-skill, low-wage labor that has been abundant in the
South since the mid-1990s, especially in areas of
construction, factories, hotels, restaurants, and custodial
work. 21
Latinos have had an impact upon the region that
goes beyond the workforce. Despite the tensions with the
Black community, Latino immigrants have started to
change the face of the South, ensuring a more ethnically
diverse future whether the locals realize it or not. The
economies of Union and Mecklenburg counties reap the
benefits of Latino labor, and Latinos add a rich cultural
from NewsBank on-line database (America’s Newspapers) on the
World Wide Web: <http://infoweb.newsbank.com>.
17
Raymond A. Mohl, 409-411
18
Ibid.
19
Stella M. Eisele, “Harvesting A Living Far From Home”
20
Ibid.
21
Raymond A. Mohl. 410
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
11
flavor to local foods and language. Yet many Southerners
are upset over the large Mexican groups that settle into the
once white and black neighborhoods of Southern towns. 22
With them, they bring their culture as well as their labor,
and Union and Mecklenburg counties are examples of the
“Latinization” of these areas. Mexican restaurants,
tacquerias, and carnecerias are now a cultural commonplace
blending into the background of car dealerships,
McDonalds, and other American businesses. Latino
immigration, at least for the near future, will pose
controversial questions.
There will always be people, regardless of race,
who will be against immigration, but it really seems to be a
moot point because Latino immigration is not likely to stop
anytime soon. Mexicans in Union and Mecklenburg
counties are a top priority since they constitute the majority
of Hispanic immigration, and wherever they go they will
bring with them a storm of controversy. Whether Blacks
and Latinos/Mexicans will be able to unite in the future
remains to be seen. There are more than enough obstacles
to keep each group on the sidelines, but steps should be
taken to ease the conflict between Blacks and Latinos in
these counties. If left unaddressed, the problem will grow
as the Latino population increases.
Mexican immigration to the Southern states is still a
relatively new subject for research since it has only had a
significant effect on the population in the past five to ten
years. 23 The present study will focus on the interracial
22
23
Raymond A Mohl, 422-425.
The historiographical context of Mexicans in the Southland is a new
phenomenon. Most historians and economists are interested in the
labor theory of Mexican immigration to the rural South. Leon Fink’s
book, The Maya of Morganton, gives an analysis of a small group of
Guatemalans who migrate from the highlands of Guatemala to the
industrial town of Morganton, NC who start to Unionize due to
discrimination at the local poultry plants. Although he is done a
microhistory of immigration at the poultry plants of Morganton, NC,
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
12
relations between Blacks and Latinos, primarily Mexicans,
in Union and Mecklenburg counties of North Carolina.
Union County has experienced a vast increase in
residents who identify themselves as “of Hispanic or Latino
origin.” Of North Carolina counties, Union has the fifth
highest increase in “Hispanic” population according to the
2000 census, and 6% of the total population is of Hispanic
origin. Of that 6%, 77% identity themselves as Mexican. 24
From these statistics, one can see that Latinos are not going
away anytime soon. They have become a permanent part of
the Union and Mecklenburg Counties’ populations, so
finding solutions to the problems between these two
minorities, Blacks and Latinos, should be a priority.
The conflict between the two minority groups,
Blacks and Latinos, can be credited to political division
abetted by the capitalistic interests of big corporations and
industries. These businesses or employers pit Blacks
against Latinos in order to acquire cheaper labor; it is to the
advantage of employers to keep the minorities fighting each
other for jobs. 25 The profits of cheap labor really seem to
be the culprits in this dispute. When Blacks lose their jobs
to Mexican or Latino workers, more tension is created
between the minorities. 26 Many of the blue-collar Black
this can be seen as the extent of what’s been written about North
Carolina’s massive Hispanic population.
24
Nancy Horak Randall, Spencer Delbridge, “Perceptions of Social
Distance in an Ethnically Fluid Community,” Sociological Spectrum,
25 (2005): 107
25
Mary C. Curtis, “The Politics of Racial Division Still Winning-When
Blacks, Hispanics Are Pitted Against One Another, Both Lose,”
Charlotte Observer, 14 October 2006, The (NC) ONE-THREE ed.,
11A. Retrieved March 12, 2009 from NewsBank on-line database
(America’s Newspapers) on the World Wide Web:
<http://infoweb.newsbank.com>.
26
Mike Drummond, “Complaint: Firings Benefited Hispanics-2 Blacks,
1 White Say They Were Replaced,” Charlotte Observer, 4 August
2006, The (NC) ONE-THREE ed., 1D. Retrieved March 12, 2009 from
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
13
workers in the areas of Union and Mecklenburg counties
have seen this effect already, especially in the poultry
plants, and most blue-collar Blacks would agree that White
employers are more sympathetic towards Latinos because
their labor is cheaper and their skin color lighter. 27
Employers can use this preference tactic in order to gain
cheap labor, but it also opens to Latino workers to
exploitation. 28
With the change in demographics in Union and
Mecklenburg counties since the early 2000’s, Blacks are
facing dwindling pool of blue-collar jobs in the area. 29 This
is the greatest source of tension between Blacks and
Mexicans, according to Monroe native, Sulutha Anthony,
who is a local probation officer. 30 Anthony explains that
the division between the two minority communities really
stems from the blue-collar workers who see their new
Mexican neighbors as a job threat, and this resentment is
worsened by misinformation and miscommunication. The
language barrier also keeps these two communities from
coming together and working towards common ground.
Anthony explains, “it all boils down to money” with these
two communities. Blue-collar, low-income Blacks see
Mexicans/Latinos as a “threat job wise because they are
NewsBank on-line database (America’s Newspapers) on the World
Wide Web: <http://infoweb.newsbank.com>.
27
Lilly Rockwell, “Rifts Among African Americans Over Immigration:
Immigration Debate Exposes Tensions Between Blacks and Latinos”
28
Ibid.
Mary C. Curtis, “The Politics of Racial Division Still Winning-When
Blacks, Hispanics Are Pitted Against One Another, Both Lose,”
29
30
Ibid.
Sulutha Anthony is a probation officer and former Girl Scout Leader
of Monroe. She has worked extensively with the Latino community in
Union county.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
14
willing to work for less money, and they also have a
different work ethic than Blacks.” 31 This clash developed a
few years ago in 2003 when Mexicans first started to be
hired in the local poultry plants. The Black workers were
eventually displaced by their Mexican counterparts, and
this has left a burgeoning distrust among them ever since.
As a result, the local Black community in Monroe
resents the fact that their Mexican neighbors keep sending
their money back to Mexico instead of investing it in the
county, into the community. This is a sensitive situation
because Mexicans are as family and community oriented as
most Blacks. For the immigrants, the need to support
families in a devastated Mexican economy takes
precedence. However, in a small area such as Monroe there
is a need for workers to put money back into the local
community to keep the jobs flowing. Debra Reed, Human
Resources Director for Monroe, adds, “African Americans
are not used to the work ethic of Mexican immigrants,” so
they feel as if these immigrants are showing off in many
ways. Reed also explains that it really shouldn’t come
down to race in the matter of hiring because a few can’t
represent the whole. 32 The fact that one Mexican is a
willing worker doesn’t prove that all Mexicans are hard
working. This logic applies to Black employees as well.
However, Bea Colson, a former Monroe school
principal, looks deeper into this job competition issue and
sees that blue-collar Blacks in the community are not the
ones who are losing out, but rather the White small
business owners. 33 This seems to be a twist in the
31
Sulutha Anthony, interview by Katie Case, 12 March 2009.
32
Debra Reed, interview by Katie Case, 17 March 2009. Debra Reed
is the Human Resources Director for the city of Monroe.
33
Bea Colson, interview by Katie Case, 31 March 2009.
Bea Colson works for the Council on Aging for Union County as well
as being a former schoolteacher and principle for Monroe Middle
School.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
15
argument. Bea Colson has spent a lifetime in Union
County and has served as a schoolteacher and principal.
She declares, “Mexicans are the next phase of cheap labor
in the U.S.’s capitalistic system.” The immigration issues
that have flared up in the South as well as the nation are
“not an accident” because the U.S government, according
to Colson, has been turning a blind eye towards immigrants
for a long time in order to keep labor cheap. Blacks, up
until the Civil Rights Movement and beyond, had provided
the majority of cheap labor, specifically in the South.
When African Americans started to gain middle class status
through education, the cheap labor pool dwindled, and
Colson understands this is where the U.S government
intervened to bring in a new cheap labor source. Colson
looks at the national context of this development, yet sees it
as a Southern phenomenon due to the agricultural and
meatpacking industries the South provides.
Colson views Latino immigrants as the “new
negro.” She believes that they are not only taking unskilled
labor jobs, but also starting small businesses. These new
concerns are underbidding White small businessmen, and
Whites are the ones who are losing out on the job market
here in Union County. She says that this is the typical
viewpoint of White men with whom she comes in contact.
Colson also depicts this standpoint as the general
understanding from the Black community as well, but due
to its being a sensitive subject, it is not publically
discussed. Whites are using Black resentment of the
Mexicans in the area as a scapegoat for their own
misgivings about Mexican businesses popping up in the
area. Bea Colson welcomes the immigrants because she
“promotes anybody who wants to come to this country to
realize the American Dream by working hard for what they
get.” She feels that Blacks and Latinos have more in
common than they might realize, since both have had to
work hard to gain their economic status here in this
country. The problem Colson points out is that “we, as
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
16
Americans, want to have it all, but we don’t want to give it
to everyone at our expense.” 34
Another reason for the mistrust of Mexicans is the
gang violence and drugs that are associated with them in
the community. Sulutha Anthony brought up the increasing
number of drug busts in Union county in the past few years,
as well as the growing gang violence in Charlotte. 35
Whether these are Chicano, Mexican Americans, or new
Latino immigrants cannot be determined. These
happenings are definitely an issue for local people, but it is
hard to pin the blame on the whole Latino community.
Some Blacks attending the Unity Summit expressed the
assumption that Latinos (Mexicans) are heavily involved in
gang activity. 36 These are just assumptions because there is
no real evidence that Latinos are more likely to be involved
in gangs than Blacks. Media coverage seems to portray the
Latino community in this light, and the different media
outlets are responsible for blowing incidents out of
proportion to gain ratings. The largest Latino gang in the
Charlotte metro area, as well as the continental United
States, is the Mara Salvatrucha gang, better known as MS-13,
which is primarily made up of El Salvadorians, not
Mexicans. 37
However, there has been more “Latino” gang
related activity in Union country according to Union
County’s sheriff’s office. Gangs such as the Aztec Thugs,
34
Bea Colson, interview
35
“Gangs of Charlotte N.C” (5 October 2003)
http://www.policeone.com/gangs/articles/69718-Gangs-of-Charlotte-NC/ (accessed 26 March 2009).
Sulutha Anthony, interview
36
African American/Latino Unity Summit, author’s notes from
discussion groups, 28
March 2009.
37
“Gangs of Charlotte N.C”
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
17
Latin Kings and the 42 nd Street gang make up the new faces
of crime in the Union County area. 38 These gangs are
particularly troublesome when they migrate from the city
into the suburbs where law enforcement is not as familiar
with gangs and how to confront them. 39 The main point is
that many Mexicans are lumped into the group of “Latinos”
when being associated with these gangs. More Latino gang
violence can be a response to the tensions between Blacks
and Latinos, as it is in Los Angeles and many other highdensity Latino areas in California. Having more gangs
spring up in Union and Mecklenburg counties is just
another response to the ethnic tensions. 40 Also, Mexicans
are not the only ones receiving a negative image when it
comes to gang violence. Blacks have always been
associated with gang violence, and by clumping them all
together nothing is accomplished for either group. Some
major, primarily “Black,” gangs that are well known in the
Charlotte areas are the Kings, the Crips, and the Bloods. 41
Gang violence, therefore, is a substantial problem in both
communities and should not be characterized as a Mexican
problem.
Overall, Anthony sees this Black on Mexican
attitude as stronger in the South due to the relatively new
shift it has experienced. 42 Many of these Mexican
immigrants are coming from the bigger states of Texas and
38
Tony Allen-Mills, “Big-City Gangs Find A Future in Small Towns”
(10 April 2005)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article379429.ece
(accessed 26 March 2009).
39
Ibid.
40
Steven Malanga, “The Rainbow Coalition Evaporates: Black anger
grows as illegal immigrants transform urban neighborhoods,” City
Journal, 18, no. 1 (Winger 2008)
41
Tony Allen-Mills, “Big-City Gangs Find A Future in Small Towns”
42
Sulutha Anthony, interview
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
18
California, and the rest are coming up from the border, so
the Black communities in these Southern states, especially
North Carolina, are still getting used to these Spanish
speakers. 43
Sometimes discrepancies really boil down to
misunderstandings through stereotypes. As with the
political division created by economic competition, much
of the tension between Blacks and Latinos in Union and
Mecklenburg counties is a result of preconceived
stereotypes that the two groups have about each other. The
African American/Latino Unity Summit sponsored by the
Latin American Coalition addressed the “assumptions” that
each group has about the other in order to open up
beneficial discussions. 44 Angeles Ortega-Moore is the
Executive Director of the Latin American Coalition in
Charlotte and the guiding figure behind this Unity Summit.
According to her, the purpose behind the meeting “is to
create alliances between the African American and Latino
communities.” 45 She started to see the tensions a few years
ago when she first started the organization, and she decided
that this problem should be addressed. A native of Mexico,
Angeles Ortega-Moore sees African Americans and Latinos
43
Douglas S. Massey et al., Beyond Smoke And Mirrors: Mexican
Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration (NY: New York: The
Russell Sage Foundation, 2002), 24.
44
African American/Latino Unity Summit, author’s notes from
discussion groups, 28
March 2009.
45
Angeles Ortega-Moore, interview by Katie Case, 28 March 2009.
Angeles Ortega-Moore is the Executive Director of the Latin American
Coalition in Charlotte. She serves as a board member for the Arts and
Science Council, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations
Committee, The Housing Partnership. She was named one of Charlotte
Observer’s Heroes of Democracy and has received awards from the NC
NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Hispanic Elected Local Officials, and
the Martin Luther King Jr. Award.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
19
as having similar matriarchal family dynamics, as well as
embracing the importance of children.
Ortega-Moore also sees most of the stereotyping
coming from the blue-collar community, especially the
Black community, because of a “protectionist” attitude
against the Latino community. The impulse to protect
oneself from what’s different is a natural inclination, but
one that Ortega-Moore hopes to dissolve by having more of
these Unity Summits. “This is just the first step into
uniting all ethnicities of Charlotte,” says Ortega-Moore.
She doesn’t want the community to view her as only
helping Blacks and Latinos get along; there’s a broader
picture in the process and having the two largest minority
groups come together is a big step in having all
communities and all ethnicities cooperate. Union and
Mecklenburg counties are examples of the demographic
shifts that have happened in the past decade. There is no
longer the essence of a Black-White, but otherwise
“Southern” homogeneous society. The new ethos is one of
a pluralistic society, and Ortega-Moore wants to embrace
all ethnicities.
Assumptions about each group, Blacks and Latinos,
lead to misunderstanding, and from misunderstanding
comes misinformation and lack of communication. This
misunderstanding can be seen in a small but revealing
controversy over chickens. A discussion of the issue of
chickens in the yards of Latino homeowners emerged from
the Unity Summit as an example of the cultural barriers that
divide Union County Blacks and Latinos. 46 Mexicans are
known in the area for raising chickens within city limits, or
more to the point, in their houses. By doing this, they are
holding onto some of the traditions that they left behind
when they left Mexico. The Black community by contrast
46
Sulutha Anthony, interview
African American/Latino Unity Summit, author’s notes from
discussion groups, 28
March 2009
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
20
sees the chickens a nuisance and health hazard. Debra
Reed, Human Resource Director for Monroe, also brings up
this point. Reed works with various community leaders
that represent the demographics of Monroe, including
African Americans and Hispanics (Spanish speakers
according to Reed). 47 During the course of one of their
meetings, the African American leader brought up the issue
of chickens to the Hispanic leader. This is a simple enough
question, and Reed relates that it all boils down to
“misunderstandings” between the two groups due to various
issues that keep African Americans and Latinos from
embracing unity their communities together 48
The specific issue raised regarding having chickens
within city limits is that roosters crows at the crack of
dawn, which in turn upsets the Black neighbors. This
concern is not exclusive to the Black community, but
Anthony as well as Reed specifically brought it up on the
behalf of the Black community. 49 Reed believes that these
city council meetings, which happen yearly or so, are
beneficial to the community because it allows each member
to understand as well as represent cultural barriers that each
might have about the other. 50 Since Mexican immigration
to this county is recent, these meetings are a useful forum
for Black community leaders to share information with the
rest of the community.
Misunderstandings coupled with fear lead to
adverse effects, and this leads to tensions that are evident
within the Black and Latino communities. Reed points out
that many of the “Spanish speakers” that she’s worked with
come to the States with pre-conceived notions of Black
47
Debra Reed, interview
48
Ibid.
49
Sulutha Anthony, interview, Debra Reed interview by Katie Case
50
Debra Reed, interview
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
21
people. 51 If Latinos don’t move beyond this largely
negative image of Blacks, then it’s hard for them to get
along with their Black neighbors in the United States.
During the African American/Latino Unity Summit many
Latinos agreed that Black communities are not something
new to them since most of the Central/South American
countries have Black communities of their own. What was
different was the image of American Blacks conveyed by
the media and the resentment towards the new immigrants
expressed by blue-collar Blacks. 52 The Latino community
has recognized the fact that the second of these issues
divides them from their neighbors more than any other, and
so are trying to approach the job competition from a new
angle. But the first matter is also an obstacle. Many
Latinos have their own assumptions about American
Blacks, including the beliefs that they engage in criminal
activity, refuse to work hard, and are loud and lack
manners. 53 These are false assumptions, as are the Black
assumptions about Latinos. Even so, many Blacks of an
older generation during the Unity Summit admitted to being
somewhat prejudiced because they saw Latinos as cheap
laborers that were undermining the Black laborers who
have worked hard to keep the wages decent. 54
Also, Reed notices that Mexicans who are illegal
tend to be more reserved and less likely to partake in the
community due to fear of being deported. 55 Candida
Quiroz, a sales consultant and advocate for the Latino
51
Ibid.
52
African American/Latino Unity Summit, author’s notes from
discussion groups, 28
March 2009
53
Ibid.
54
Ibid.
55
Debra Reed, interview by Katie Case
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
22
community in Charlotte, spoke of this issue of fear within
the Latino community. 56 Quiroz, a native of Venezuela,
spoke of many new immigrants to this area as “suffering in
silence” because they do not know the language yet, and
they are not as well educated due to the impoverished state
of the countries they left. Quiroz has come to understand
that “knowledge is power” in the U.S., and many Latinos
are not able to pull themselves up because of fear of getting
deported as well as not being able to pick up English fast
enough. She’s noticed since coming to the U.S. that it is
hard for many Latino families from rural backgrounds
because it is such a “culture shock” for them, and they are
too afraid to take initiative and become involved in their
larger communities because of the cultural barriers. This
hesitancy to get involved in the community is seen by the
Black community as well, but they see it in a negative way.
Many Blacks view Latino reluctance as an excuse for
Latinos to deliberately isolate themselves, but through the
discussions provided by the Unity Summit, each group is
able to express concerns such as these in the open so that
both groups are on the same page. 57
With negative preconceptions added to the language
barrier, it is hard for both minorities to come together and
get past the negative assumptions of the other. Debra Reed
looks at this issue from a universal standpoint. She sees
that each group has not taken the time to learn the other
group, partly due to these barriers and stereotypes. She
sees each ethnicity or group of people as a triangle,
meaning Black, White, Latino, and so each ethnic group
must work together in order to be a whole, which represents
the community. The big question she asks is, “How do we
incorporate everyone because we all really want the same
56
57
Candida Quiroz, interview by Katie Case, 28 March 2009.
African American/Latino Unity Summit, author’s notes from
discussion groups, 28
March 2009
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
23
things.” 58 These things boil down to being able to support
oneself and one’s family in a comfortable manner. And,
essentially, that is exactly what each group wants to do.
The Unity Summit saw Blacks and Latinos putting
assumptions aside and realizing that each group wanted the
same things: better healthcare, affordable housing, and
better education for their children. 59 By looking beneath
the surface Blacks and Latinos are trying to find ways to
fight their battles together and to integrate their
communities instead of segregating them.
The more educated of the Black community,
Anthony says, view Latinos in a different light. 60 Although
they do not hold the same grudges as the blue-collar
workers or the same stereotypes, the “educated” feel there
is too much catering to the native Spanish speakers. This
pertains to having almost all the signage in these counties
bilingual, with Spanish sometimes first and then English.
The feelings that are prevalent throughout this community
are in favor of English first, since this is an English
speaking country. Reed, on the other hand, sees Mexican
immigrants as part of the community, and they should be
represented as such. Whether a candidate is fluent in
Spanish as well as English heavily influences most of the
hiring processes in the Monroe/Union county area. For
example, Reed explains that the local police and fire
department gives higher pay to those who are bilingual. 61
This skill is necessary due to the large majority of
Mexicans who are not yet fluent in English. So why is the
58
Debra Reed, interview.
59
African American/Latino Unity Summit, author’s notes from
discussion groups, 28
March 2009
Debra Reed, interview
60
Sulutha Anthony, interview
61
Ibid.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
24
“white-collar” Black community more accepting of
Mexican immigration than their blue-collar counterparts
are? White-collar Blacks are not as worried about losing
their job to a Mexican/Latino, and therefore, they have no
reason harbor no resentments.
Regardless, Anthony also conveys the strong need
for breaking down these barriers, these stereotypes that are
felt by the majority of the blue-collar Black community. 62
She says that other people have fostered much of the
distrust between the two minorities—the same people who
would gain from having Blacks and Mexicans fighting each
other for the scraps. Anthony explains “not much has been
forced between the two…there’s a need for more
knowledge and more communication between them.” It
seems to be the community’s responsibility to better foster
good relationships between two essential minorities in
Union and Mecklenburg counties. Already, steps have been
taken in this direction with the help of Latin American
Coalition teaming up with the Black community on various
programs such as the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community
Relations Committee, the Housing Partnership, and the
Center for International Understanding. 63 The African
American/Latino Unity Summit is also a big leap forward
for both of these communities. This event allows both
Blacks and Latinos to freely express themselves in order to
find solutions to the problems facing these two groups, and
to take what they learn back to their respective
communities to share the experience.
Anthony believes that the fostering should start with
the children since they are sometimes able to turn a blind
eye to stereotypes and embrace the different cultures. 64
62
Ibid.
63
African American/Latino Unity Summit, author’s notes from
discussion groups, 28
March 2009
64
Sulutha Anthony, interview
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
25
According to Sandra Stanton at the African
American/Latino Unity Summit, children are the product of
their parents, and unfortunately, they are bringing their
parent’s prejudices to school with them. 65 Sandra Stanton
is a middle school teacher in Mecklenburg County, and she
sees the conflict between Latino and Black children that
stem from their parents. It is difficult for a teacher to fix
home problems stemming from racial issues in addition to
trying to teach children academic skills. It is vital that
parents keep their prejudices to themselves for the benefit
of the next generation because the next generation should
be able to foster better relationships between each other
than their parents have done. 66
Anthony, as well as Angeles Ortega-Moore,
believes Blacks and Mexicans are “more akin than
different,” which can provide the solid ground for new
growth. 67 Both, for starters, have a lot of pride and are
loyal to their respective cultures as well as being very
community and family oriented. If these two groups can
see the common ground, then changes in how they perceive
each other can start taking place without the distrust and
fear that that miscommunication and stereotypes bring.
Having surveyed this topic, one must conclude that
attitudes will change slowly; only now are steps being
taken to build relationships between Blacks and Latinos.
Eventually, by stemming problems of miscommunication,
misinformation, and the harboring of false assumptions that
are the main reasons for the tensions between blue-collar
Blacks and Latinos, Union and Mecklenburg Counties will
see the benefits of both these communities working
together towards the same goals. The process will surely
be a slow one as each ethnic group educates itself about the
other. However, there is hope for both communities to
65
Sandra Stanton, interview by Katie Case, 28 March 2009. Sandra is
a middle school teacher in Mecklenburg County.
66
67
Ibid.
Angeles Ortega-Moore and Sulutha Anthony, interview
26
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
overcome these tensions, especially in the minds of
Angeles Ortega-Moore, Bea Colson, and Sulutha Anthony.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
27
Sydni Canada
Like a Flower: Tennyson’s The Princess and
the Language of Flowers

I. Introduction
Flowers have played an interesting part in the
courtship rituals between men and women for centuries. The
inclination to give such tokens suggests that people have a
familiarity with nature that extends beyond merely living in
nature’s presence. During the Victorian Era, the practice of
flower giving seems to have taken on an altogether different
element with the commonly acknowledged yet little
understood practice of the “Language of Flowers.” So
widespread was this cultural phenomenon that one would
expect to find it reflected in literature of the period. And
such is indeed the case, as one of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s
poems vividly illustrates. Tennyson’s work The Princess
reflects the popular feminine culture of the era by using
floral iconography to portray the courtship of the
untraditional relationship between the Prince and Princess
Ida.
II. History
Since the decline in use of the Language of Flowers,
many people have assumed that couples regularly exchanged
flowers with hidden meanings in order to conduct secret
affairs. This notion merely romanticizes an institution used
to entertain housebound women. The practice of floral
language was actually part of a greater literary movement in
sentimental flower books, which included anthologies of
flower poetry, folklore, and botanies, as well as collections
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
28
of prose with religious or moral themes.1
The Language of Flowers did not just grow out of
British or European affinity for the flower and the garden.
The idea for such a secretive language developed from
another fascination of the nineteenth century. Many
attribute the phrase “Language of Flowers” to an Orientalist
translation of sélam or communicating through objects
(Seaton 61). Oriental essayists wrote of the sélam as a secret
language between lovers, usually a harem girl and her lover
in the outside world (Seaton 62). Unlike the flowers in the
language that would develop during the nineteenth century,
the objects a harem girl sent her lover held no significant
meaning in themselves. Instead, the objects related to a
word or group of words that rhymed with the objects’ names.
From these rhyming words, the intended recipient could
determine the message his love had sent. Some Orientalists
have argued against this interpretation of the sélam,
suggesting that such interactions between lovers would be
obvious to all. Instead, the sélam has been interpreted as a
game played among harem girls (Seaton 63).
Its [the sélam] spirit consists not, as might
naturally be supposed, in the connection which
fancy may trace between particular flowers and
certain thoughts and feelings. Such an idea
never entered the heads of the fair inventresses
of the oriental language of flowers. They have
contented themselves with merely taking a word,
which may happen to rhyme with the name of
any particular flower or fruit, and then filling up
the given rhyme with some fanciful phrase
corresponding with its signification. (Shoberl
18)
Whatever the interpretation, the nineteenth century’s
1
However, a few books published during the nineteenth century
had botanical references to explain such elements as class, order,
structure.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
29
obsession with the East clearly played a role in the spread of
the Language of Flowers through France, England, and
finally to the United States.
When the concept of secret floral languages did
move into Europe, it reflected its origins in Western notions
of Oriental courtship. In her book Flowers, the Angels’
Alphabet, Susan Loy credits Seigneur Aubry de la Mottraye
and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu with introducing the
Language of Flowers to Europe, the first after visiting Charles
XII of Sweden in exile in Turkey and the second after
accompanying her husband, the British ambassador, to Turkey.
However, according to Lehner, it was Charles XII who actually
introduced the concept to Europe (Lehner 109).
No matter where the Language of Flowers originated in
Europe, the history of floral language is more elaborate than
a mere copying of Oriental schools. In France, flower books
were commissioned as gifts, usually in the form of intricate
calligraphy illustrations and floral poetry. Literary almanacs
evolved by the end of the eighteenth century out of
traditional almanacs in order to incorporate notions of nature
and romance. From these two types of books, writers of
early nineteenth century France began to formulate the idea
of floral language (Seaton 63-68). By drawing on the
previously mentioned works, these “dictionary” writers
fabricated a language in which they believed secret affairs
could be conducted.
When floral language reached England by the 1820s,
most of the volumes were destined for the gift book trade.
Only two major publishers, Routledge and Ward & Lock,
ever printed floral books during the nineteenth century; the
rest were printed by minor publishers with unfamiliar names
that have ceased publishing (Seaton 80). Much of the racy
material found in the French versions had to be edited for the
English reader. However, several English authors, such as
Frederic Shoberl, made direct translations of their French
counterparts. Through the mid-nineteenth century, the
Language of Flowers grew in popularity with books
appearing yearly; many of the most popular dictionaries
went into several editions. Nevertheless, by the 1890s,
30
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
although a few books were still being printed, the concept
was dated and fell out of favor. Though the Language of
Flowers eventually lost its popularity, the concept shaped
many of the lasting images from the Victorian Era, and it
remains a valuable aid to understanding the manners of
morals of the period.
III. Sentimental Flower Books
Sentimental flower books are based on traditional
elements of flower personification. Flowers were seen as a
means of representing human qualities. Thus, in the
Language of Flowers human emotions are “personified” in
order to convey them to another person. The flower, plant,
or tree becomes the means to convey a particular feeling, as
defined by the publishers of the dictionaries. Through the
use of metaphors, “Language of Flowers becomes literally a
flowery rhetoric, but even the metaphoric flowers arise to
name indirectly the notions of sensuality, desires, and
language” (Saldivar 235-36). Obviously, the flowers, during
a time of conservative values, came to represent
unmentionable yearnings.
When authors created a floral dictionary, very few
relied on traditional meanings. Writers freely devised a
language that would enable a reader to conduct a love affair.
The range of flowers available in any given floral book drew
upon the culture’s vocabulary of love as well as the
availability of plants in the region (Seaton 122). For
example, a Lady’s slipper would be found only in floral
books written in the United States. However, fruits such as
pomegranates and pineapples could be found in books from
continental Europe, England, and the U.S. due to traditional
literary imagery and the plants’ use in trade. Meanings for
flowers were usually in the form of nouns and modified
nouns. Few flowers were given definitions in the form of
complete statement. Likewise, few verbs were used to
describe the flowers (Seaton 122). Meanings usually fell
into one of three categories: personal qualities, states of
mind, or aspects of life (Seaton 123). Overall, there is very
little consistency among the many floral languages unless
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
31
one writer is copying from another or the writer is following
a traditional path to come to the meaning of the flower.
Despite these generalizations noted by critics, the
Language of Flowers remains an under-researched area.
Although floral sentimentality books were popular gifts
during the Victorian Era and were published in abundance
by minor printers, they have not been preserved at the rate of
many other publications. Nor have there been many reprints.
Only the most popular etiquette and gardening books (and
none that deal only with floral language) have been reprinted
since the 1910s. Since many of the copies that are still in
existence are original editions, complications with travel and
libraries’ unwillingness to loan out older editions have
limited the author of this paper to the examination of only
eight floral books: Charlotte de Latour, Le Langage des
fleurs (1819); Frederic Shoberl, The Language of Flowers:
With Illustrative Poetry (1839); B. Delachenaye, Abecedaire
de Flore ou langage des fleures (1811); Henry Phillips,
Floral Emblems (1825); Elizabeth Washington Gamble Wirt,
Flora’s Dictionary (1831); Thomas E. Hill, Hill’s Manual of
Social and Business Forms (1883); Kate Greenaway, The
Language of Flowers (1885); and Lucy Hooper, The Lady’s
Book of Flowers (1859).
IV.
The Audience
Floral language was reserved for women as a form of
entertainment. The ideal woman was close to nature,
possibly through gardening; therefore, it was easier for many
writers to create a nature that had feminine attributes.
“Flowers . . . were seen as the most suitable aspect of nature
to represent women, or to interact with them, reflecting as
they do certain stereotypical qualities of the female being”
(Seaton 17). The ideal woman of the Victorian Era, and the
target audience for sentimental flower books, was a
domesticated creature, restricted to the home and delicate in
nature. In that sense, society was “codifying an ideal of
womanhood as a quasi-redemptive agency that operated
almost entirely within the sphere of maternity and domestic
life” (Adams 9). Locating woman inside the home narrowed
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
32
idea of what it meant to be feminine. According to Victorian
society, it was natural for the woman to want to thrive within
her domestic realm and unnatural for a woman to want to
pursue anything outside of the home, unless the activity
involved some aspect of nature. Therefore, sentimental
floral books as well as nature and gardening books were
tailored to the female audience.
The flower and the woman, in many respects,
became the same entity. Each was prescribed similar
characteristics of frailty, fairness, and prettiness. The most
common flowers, the rose, lily, and violet, are most
commonly represented by beauty, innocence, and modesty,
respectively—all traits that society believed women
possessed. The flower and the woman had to be protected
from the harsher aspects of life.
V.
The Princess
Even before one looks for examples, a connection
between the Language of Flowers and Victorian poetry
seems likely. Poets of the Victorian Era, especially those
writing in the remnants of the Romantic period, rely heavily
upon the use of flowers and floral imagery in their works.
Their descriptive use of the flora assumes that the poet, his
readership, and (possibly) the public have an affinity for
nature. The floral imagery in Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s
narrative poem The Princess points to such cultural
familiarity with natural world.
Published as a stand-alone piece in 1842, the poem
tells a fairy-tale like story, a framed narrative of an unnamed
prince from the Middle Ages seeking the secluded kingdom
of his betrothed. It is in this secluded kingdom that Princess
Ida, fed up with the male-dominated world, endeavors to
educate her fellow women. In the world outside her school,
“there is no place for woman to formulate and pursue
intellectual designs independent of male desires, or
inaccessible to male understanding” (Adams 16). In this
secluded school, Ida can accomplish what no man has
allowed any other woman previously to do—educate herself
to the same level as a man. Although the attempt at creating
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
33
a university for women was a noble cause in a time when
little was expected of women, the knowledge and education
at Ida’s university come at the expense of death to any man
who dares to enter the female realm. The gate at the
entrance of the school proclaims this warning: “Let No Man
Enter On Pain Of Death” (Canto II Line 192). Yet, this
declaration does not stop the Prince and his two comrades
from entering the university, disguised as women. It is not
long before they are discovered, and only the Prince is
allowed to stay. Through his time at the female university,
the Prince, who does eventually get his Princess, experiences
firsthand the animosity Ida feels towards men and the
lengths to which she is willing to go to preserve the school
she has built.
According to A. N. Wilson, Tennyson was the
consummate Victorian. “More than any poet before or since,
Tennyson openly exposed himself to the mood of his age,
mapping out its angst and its excitements and triumphs, and
transforming them into haunting lyric forms” (99). By doing
so, Tennyson has created a scenario where, although she
seemingly fails, a woman has tried to take on the cultural
standards of her world. However, the poem is not merely a
questioning of how women should fit into society. “The
Princess afford(s) a glimpse of the aspirations of its age in
the colours in which they presented themselves to the mind
of the poet” (Killham 267). Through the use of flower
imagery, Tennyson could easily attract a readership of
women, especially those who read the poetry usually
included in floral sentiment books. Furthermore, Tennyson
reflects elements of British culture at large. Not only does
Tennyson force the question of the role of women beyond
the domestic sphere in a time when women were treated as
second-class citizens, but also he exposes himself to the
cultural influences that such a realm creates.
However, the central woman in The Princess seems
nothing like her Victorian counterpart. Princess Ida is in
every respect an Amazon warrior determined to cast aside
man in order to build up and educate her fellow woman.
However, the woman Tennyson creates does not neglect the
34
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
natural world she is representing. She, like nature, “remains
feminine, to be sure” (Adams 7).
Although Tennyson does bring the question of a
woman’s role in society to the foreground, his abundant use
of floral imagery keeps The Princess in the realm of
traditional femininity. Even the university, once a symbol of
masculine dominance and knowledge, becomes feminine in
the conventional sense by the wealth of flora surrounding the
school. “Laurel[s],” presumably part of the “great urns of
flowers,” surround the school (Canto II Line 23, 26).
Traditionally, the laurel is a symbol of glory and triumph.
The university under the reign of Ida is supposed to be a
great triumph for women everywhere. Yet when it is further
combined with the imagery of “The Muses and the Graces,”
fickleness, an element that one floral writer attributes to the
plant, can be readily seen (Wirt). As these mythological
female groups control inspiration and fate, their willingness
to grant a practitioner of the arts with even the slightest bit
of motivation can be seen as being very fickle, a trait that
has continued to be characterized as feminine. Although Ida
does try to protect her school from all external, male forces,
her fickleness and pride ruins friendships with Ladies Psyche
and Blanche, as the poem eventually reveals.
Even the gardens that surround the school where the
men seek refuge after being discovered by Lady Psyche are
markedly “feminine.” Orange thickets, according to nearly
every commentator, were categorized as representing
“generosity.” One small deviation is asserted by
Delachenaye, who designates the meaning as “sweetness.”
However, both associations are traits commonly assigned to
women during the Victorian Era. Women were supposed to
be generous in offering the hospitality of their homes. They
were to be domestic goddesses who could manage the home,
take care of the children, and perform all wifely duties. At
the same time, the expected demeanor of women was to be
“sweet.” A woman could not be argumentative or
displeasing. She should be as agreeable as possible.
Yet, the school seems more conventionally feminine
than the actual women in the poem do. When Tennyson
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
35
describes the women, they appear powerful, witty, and able
to compete with their male counterparts outside the
university. However, they are still made feminine through
their depiction by means of floral symbolism. Set in the
author’s own time rather than that of the primary narrative,
the prologue describes a group of gentlemen on holiday from
school as well as a few young ladies enjoying their time at
Vivian Hall. Lilia is at first seen as reserved and meek,
traits attributed to the fairer sex. Her name reflects the floral
traits suggested by both Hill and Phillips: youth and purity.
Yet looks are quite deceiving. This ‘half child half woman’
is full of a passion that is later reflected in the Princess
(Prologue Line 101). Lilia’s passion causes the speaker to
refer to her as “A rosebud set with little willful thorns”
(Prologue Line 153). By itself, according to Latour and
Shoberl, a rosebud usually represents a young girl, and
thorns, according to Phillips, are representative of severity
and rigor. When the two floral emblems are placed together
in a phrase, such as the one used to describe Lilia, they come
to mean a young girl with a strictness and inflexibility in her
manner. Lilia is quite keen in her belief that women,
because of men, are beaten down by convention.
In stark contrast to the femininity of the flower,
almost every mention of a tree or plant reflects either a
particular man or a masculine characteristic in general. For
example, when the three men arrive incognito at the
university, Princess Ida calls the new students “green wood”
(Canto II Line 75). While she does not yet know that these
three are men, nowhere else are students of the university
described as any form of trees or wood. Further on in the
poem, Princess Ida uses a palm tree in her lecture about why
the women of the school are not subservient to men.
She paused, and added with a haughtier smile,
'And as to precontracts, we move, my friend,
At no man's beck, but know ourselves and thee.
O Vashti, noble Vashti! Summon'd out
She kept her state, and left the drunken king
To brawl at Shushan underneath the palms.'
(Canto III Line 225-230)
36
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
In her speech, Ida alludes to the Hebrew queen from the
Book of Esther, who refused to obey the king’s request to
show off her beauty. Women, in both Ida’s world outside
the school and in Tennyson’s society, were to act in a certain
manner under the rule of the male authority figure in their
lives. However, at Ida’s school, the women were acting on
their own without any men to direct them. The girls of the
school are encouraged by her speech to be valiant; therefore,
by acting on their own in a time when women still need the
direction of men, the girls of the school are presenting very
masculine qualities.
When the floral reference in the passage is seen in
the light of the floral dictionaries, a similar idea emerges.
The dictionaries of Phillips, Hooper, and Greenaway all state
that the palm, which Vashti will battle under once she leaves
the king, means “victory,” and it is a victory for both the
biblical character and the girls of the school. At the school,
thus far, the girls have been able to live and learn under the
teachings of Ida, Psyche, and Blanche without the
interference of men. It is not until the Prince and his
companions come looking for his betrothed that the
problems of the school are brought to light. Delachnaye,
however, suggests that the palm represents “dignity,” which
can also be true for the women. These women are trying to
bring dignity to their gender by educating themselves to the
standard of their male counterparts. It is through this dignity
that they hope to gain equality with man and possibly prove,
Ida hopes, woman’s superiority.
Finally, trees come to represent also war or the fear
of war in The Princess. Customarily, especially during the
nineteenth century, people thought of war as a man’s duty to
his country. Although not so much presented as a duty in
the poem, when the kingdoms of the Prince’s father and
Ida’s father invade, war is still a man’s realm. Entering the
camp of his father, the Prince observes,
Whispers of war.
Entering, the sudden light
Dazed me half-blind: I stood and seem'd to hear,
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
37
As in a poplar grove when a light wind wakes
A lisping of the innumerous leaf and dies,
Each hissing in his neighbour's ear; and then
A strangled titter, out of which there brake
On all sides, clamouring etiquette to death
Unmeasured mirth; while now the two old kings
Began to wag their baldness up and down,
The fresh young captains flash'd their glittering teeth,
The huge bush-bearded Barons heaved and blew,
And slain with laughter roll'd the gilded Squire.
(Canto V Line 10-21)
One must deduce what type of poplar Tennyson meant when
writing this section. Both the black and white poplars that
are in floral dictionaries are native to Europe, so one must
look at both to see which fits the section better. Latour,
Shoberl, Phillips, Hill, and Greenaway all affix the meaning
of “courage” onto the black poplar. This description could
fit the scene because the Prince would have to call on
courage while walking through the camps. Throughout the
entire poem, the Prince has never seemed to be a person who
would willingly cause conflict or disorder. Therefore, the
military camp seems a foreign place for him to traverse. As
for the white poplar, the same five writers give it the
meaning of “time.” This meaning seems less likely to fit the
scene than courage; however, it is only a matter of time
before either one of these camps attacks the other or the
university.
Of all of the floral imagery within The Princess, two
flowers are mentioned more than any other is: the lily and
the rose. Possibly because both flowers have religious,
mythological, and legendary connotations, poets more often
than not turn to these two flowers for inspiration. While the
meanings within the floral dictionaries do not vary
drastically (except in the meanings assigned to different
varieties of lilies and roses), the application to which the
poem puts these flowers is sometimes at variance with the
dictionaries.
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Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
During the nineteenth century, people “associated the
idea of extreme whiteness with the lily” (Hooper 93). The
same holds true for The Princess. On nearly every occasion
upon which the lily is mentioned, the reference is to
someone’s complexion, usually a female’s. Both Lady
Psyche and Melissa are described as being ‘lily’ in features
or ‘lily-like’ (Canto II Line 297, Canto IV Line 161).
Yet when other types of lilies are used to describe
Cyril and the infant that Princess Ida takes, the meanings
become muddled. A water-lily is used to describe the
change in Cyril’s temperament:
He has a solid base of temperament:
But as the waterlily starts and slides
Upon the level in little puffs of wind,
Tho' anchor'd to the bottom, such is he.'
(Canto IV Line 254-256)
Usually, a water lily means “purity of heart,” according to
Greenaway’s dictionary. However, in this section, Cyril’s
temperament is said to be variable like the floating lily pa d,
even though ultimately it is anchored, as the plant is
anchored to the bottom of the lake. Possibly, the ‘purity of
heart’ definition could apply if one were to read the lines as
Cyril being tested yet triumphing.
As for the child that Ida takes, she describes him as:
'Pretty bud!
Lily of the vale! half-open'd bell of the woods!
Sole comfort of my dark hour,’
(Canto VI Line 191-193)
The child, though taken out of spite in her feud with Psyche,
seems to bring comfort for Ida. Nearly every source suggests
that the lily of the valley represents a “return to happiness.” Ida
is seeing her dream crash down around her. First three men
invade her school; now two kingdoms are preparing to do battle
on the fields in front of the university. The child, for Ida,
represents the possibility of a future for her dream without the
traitorous Psyche. Yet now none of it is possible; the child
most go back to its mother, ending Ida’s dream altogether. Of
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
39
all eight sources, only Wirt characterizes the meaning of the lily
of the valley as “delicacy.” Both the child and Ida’s dream of a
school for women could be seen as delicate things to be
nurtured until they reach their full potential. However, the
original analysis better fits the lily of the valley.
Surprisingly, the rose is not mentioned as many times as the
lily. Could this be because the inspiration for the tale in the
frame story is a woman whose name is derived from lily? The
few prominent places the rose appears, it deals not with a
woman but a man. Yet, the scenes remain quite feminine. In
one scene, Cyril, disguised as a woman, describes the Prince as
a rose.
'The climax of his age! as tho' there were
One rose in all the world, your Highness that,
He worships your ideal:
(Canto II Line 50-52)
Among all of the sources, there are a total of thirty-three
different varieties of roses (including rosebuds, dry rose, and
roses with thrones). With only the word rose used in this
passage, the reader must guess which type of rose Tennyson is
referencing. According to Lucy Hooper, authors “are inclined to
think that there is only one real species of Rose, which is the
Rosa Canina, or Dog-rose of the hedges, &c., and all the other
sorts are accidental varieties of it” (103). So considered, rose
can mean “gentle, pretty” (Hooper), “beauty” (Latour, Phillips,
Wirt), “ephemeral beauty” (Delachenaye), and “love” (Shoberl).
None of the meanings truly fits the meaning of the passage.
However, if one were to think of beauty as meaning something
akin to “uniqueness,” then this “gentle” and “beautiful” Prince
has nothing quite like him in all of the world.
Ultimately, the poem is a tale of the eventual love
that develops between the Prince and Princess Ida. The most
endearing indication through floral imagery of the Prince’s
blooming love for Princess Ida does not occur during
conversation between the two; it occurs during the Prince’s
defense of Ida to his father. Prior to the battle between his
father and King Gama, the Prince’s father reflects on the
honor in taking and winning a wife by strength of arms. A
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Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
man has to jump into the fray and find a woman worth
winning. The King wed the Prince’s mother after winning
her in this manner. The Prince can only respond that Ida
would not be Ida were she to “prize the soldier” (Canto V
Line 166-167). Her defiance endears her to the Prince. The
Prince continues to declare that his father thinks of all
women as the same, but he knows that they have their
differences.
Yet I hold her, king,
True woman: but you clash them all in one
That have many differences as we.
The violet varies from the lily as far
As oak from elm
(Canto V Line 171-175)
Each flower and plant used in this scene has a
noticeably different meaning from its counterpart, and not
just in physical appearance. The violet, according to all of
the sources, is representative of “modesty.” The lily,
alternatively, is representative of “majesty,” according to
Latour, Delachenaye, and Phillips. The oak, on all accounts,
means “hospitality.” For the elm, Latour ascribes the
meaning of “vigor,” Phillips “zealousness,” and Wirt
“compassion.” If physical appearance is to be accounted for,
one should look at these plants in groups and not just as
individuals. The lily and the violet are small flowers,
whereas the elm and oak are trees and dwarf the other two.
Furthermore, the flowers are representative of the
differences between women whereas the trees represent
differences between men. The Prince’s father might
approach one type of woman a certain way, but the Prince
chooses to pursue Ida a very different way. Therefore, the
Prince’s defense of his love for Ida as well as her stubborn
personality is his greatest declaration of love in the poem.
When Princess Ida accepts her fate of losing her
school and is taking care of the injured Prince, she recites a
poem to him during his recovery. The poem, set aside from
the other lyrical poems within The Princess, is a dark, erotic
poem that reflects Ida’s sense of defeat and resignation. She
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
41
is depressed because her dream of being independent from
man has failed, yet she is resigned to her original fate of
marriage to the Prince. However, this idea is not altogether
terrible to her, as the eroticism of the poem suggests. The
floral imagery lends to this notion. The lily, not only a
symbol of majesty but also of purity, is folding “all her
sweetness up” (Canto VII Line 186). And yet this enfolding
is not a shrinking away of purity from a corruptive element.
Instead, it is a move to make room for the Prince in her
“bosom” to “be lost” in her (Canto VII Line 189).
Where a flower originates and what its uses are play
a crucial part in its meaning. Several of the plants Tennyson
weaves throughout The Princess reflect a meaning derived
from place of origin and use. Traditionally, a cypress is seen
as a cemetery tree, a tree that would shade the dead. Much
of the meaning behind the tree has to do with the mythology
of the cypress being a familiar to the Greek god of the
underworld, Hades. Therefore, when the floral books credit
the tree with a meaning, Latour gives it as “grief,”
Delachenaye as “death” or “grief,” and Phillips as “death
and eternal sorrow.” Yet in Princess Ida’s poem, the death
imagery suggested by the cypress is suspended. “Now
sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;/ Nor waves the
cypress in the palace walk” (Canto VII Line 176-177).
Though it is still present, death or grief has frozen. The
contradicting images of death and wakening suggest the
ultimate idea that Ida is wakening to the idea of loving her
betrothed. Men—like death—no longer cause Ida fear.
Although she has lost her dream to educate women in the
same manner as men (a death), she has found a man who
sees her as an individual rather than as part of a group.
One must be careful not to generalize too quickly
concerning Tennyson’s use of the Language of Flowers in
The Princess. There are other factors that could have
contributed to Tennyson’s choice of flowers and floral
imagery. Yet most of the plants and flowers within the
poem are used in a manner similar to the meanings found in
floral dictionaries. Tennyson has reworked floral meanings
to conduct an overarching, albeit untraditional, love affair
42
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
between the Prince and Princess Ida. The similarities
between the poem and the sentimental flora books that
targeted women of the nineteenth century are hard to deny.
The Princess is abundantly full of floral imagery, most of
which falls in line with many of the perceived meanings of
flowers during the nineteenth century. Although the poem
ends with Princess Ida losing her dream of educating
women, the floral language of the poem lends itself to
creating a deeper dialogue between the Prince and Princess
Ida. This hidden dialogue enables the two to unite once they
realize they have similar values. In the end, the Language of
Flowers, although entirely defined by its entertainment value
for the female reader of the nineteenth century, has been
extended far beyond its originally intended purpose.
Works Cited
Adams, James Eli. “Woman Red in Tooth and Claw: Nature
and the Feminine in Tennyson and Darwin.”
Victorian Studies 33.1 (Fall 1989): 7-27.
Delachenaye, B. Abecedaire de Flore ou langage des
fleures. Paris: Didot l’Aine, 1811.
Greenaway, Kate. The Language of Flowers. London:
George Routledge and Sons, 1884.
Hill, Thomas E. Hill’s Manual of Social and Business
Forms. Chicago: Hill Standard Book Co. 1886.
Hooper, Lucy, ed. The Lady’s Book of Flowers. New York:
Derby and Jackson, 1859.
“Kew: History and Heritage.” Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
19 Nov 2008 www.kew.org
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
43
Killham, John. Tennyson and The Princess: Reflection of an
Age. London: University of London Athlone Press,
1958.
Latour, Charlotte de. Le Langage des Fleures. Paris; Audot,
1819.
Lehner, Ernest. Folklore and Symbolism of Flowers, Plants
and Trees. New York: Tudor Publishing Co., 1960.
Loudon, J.C. Encyclopedia of Gardening. London:
Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman,
1835.
Loy, Susan. Flowers, the Angels’ Alphabet: the Language
and Poetry of Flowers. CSL Press, 2001.
Phillips, Henry. Floral Emblems. London; Saunders & Otley,
1825.
Saldivor, Ramon. Figural Language in the Novel: the
Flowers of Speech from Cervantes to Joyce.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.
Seaton, Beverly. The Language of Flowers: A History.
Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1995.
Shoberl, Fredrick. The Language of Flowers: With
Illustrative Poetry. London, Saunders & Otley, 1834.
Wilson, A.N. The Victorians. New York: W.W. Norton and
Co., 2004.
Wirt, Elizabeth. Flora’s Dictionary by a Lady. Baltimore:
Fielding Lucas, 1831.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
44
Advances in the Synthesis of 4Hydroxymellein
Alan Rowe, Brenton Smith, Dr. Heather
Voegtle

Abstract
Isocoumarins encompass a class of lactones that exhibit a wide
range of biological activities including antifungal1 and cytotoxic2
properties. One such isocoumarin derivative, 4-hydroxymellein,
has been previously isolated in marine-derived fungi3,4. This
isocoumarin has shown antimicrobial activity and toxicity
against the spruce budworm in conifer endophytes5. 4hydroxymellein has also been found in the ant Camponotus
quadrisectus F. Smith6, but this interesting isocoumarin has
never been synthesized. This paper will focus on recent
advances in the synthesis of this compound with emphasis on
low-temperature synthesis and cyclizations in traditional
solvents.
1. Introduction
In order to synthesize 4-hydroxymellein (1), a synthetic route
was planned. Two different paths were attempted.
1.1 First synthetic pathway
For the first synthetic pathway, 4-hydroxyphthalic anhydride (2)
would be utilized as a starting material, and it is commercially
available (Scheme 1.1). The hydoxyl group would first be
protected with tetrahydropyran (THP) to make a THP ether (3).
Then the compound would undergo a grignard reaction at low
temperatures to open the anhydride (4) and a methylation would
produce the methyl ester (5). Oxymercuration-demercuration
would close the ring to give an isocoumarin (6), and lastly the
ketone would be reduced and the protecting group would be
cleaved to give the desired compound (1).
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
45
1.2 Second synthetic pathway
Salicylic acid (7), a commercially available compound, would be
utilized as the starting material as the first step for the second
route (Scheme 1.2). The alcohol group would first be protected
to form the monobenzylated compound (8) followed by an
iodination to form compound 9. Cyclization (10), a
hydroboration reaction (11) and deprotection would yield 4hydroxymellein (1).
O
OH
O
THP
O
O
O
O
H2C CHMgBr
O
O
O
3
2
CH3I
OH
-78oC
THF
O
POCl3
O
4
K2CO3
O
O
O
O
O
OCH3
Hg(OAC)2; H2O
O
O
NaBH4
O
5
OH O
O
1) NaBH4
2) H+
OH
O
6
1
Scheme 1.1 First Planned Synthetic Route of 4-hydroxymellein.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
46
O
O
1) NaH,
OH benzyl bromide
OH
OH
O
OH
O
2) Iodine, THF,
-78oC to RT
3) H2O
O
2) NaOH
8
7
I
1) TMEDA, s-BuLi,
THF, -78oC
1) Na metal, EtOH,
CuCN,
Ethylacetoacetate
O
O
1) BH3
O
2) H2O2, OH-
2) 5% HCl
9
10
O
O
O
Removal of
Protecting Group
OH O
O
OH
11
OH
1
Scheme 1.2 Second Planned Synthetic Route of 4hydroxymellein.
2. Results and Discussion
2.1 Advances in first synthetic pathway
Since the starting material, 4-hydroxyphthalic anhydride (2), is
cost prohibitive to use on a large scale, phthalic anhydride was
used as a model compound. It is very similar to the desired
starting material and only lacks the hydroxyl group in the 4
position. Since this model compound did not have a hydroxyl
group to protect, another compound, m-cresol (12), was used as
a model compound to synthesize a THP protected compound.
First, m-cresol was reacted with POCl3 and THP under ordinary
conditions, but this did not give the intended product. A second
reaction at lower temperatures gave the THP ether (13) in good
yields (59%) and was verified by nuclear magnetic resonance
(NMR) by multiplets at 1.4-2.0ppm and 3.4-4.2ppm and a singlet
at 5.4ppm indicating the addition of the protecting group. Other
notable peaks included a multiplet at 6.6-7.1ppm and a singlet at
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
47
2.39ppm. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) also
verified this with a fragmentation peak of m/e=108 for the loss of
the THP group (Scheme 2, Figure 1).
OH
THP
POCl3
O
O
0oC
1h
12
13
Scheme 2. Synthesizing the THP Ether.
Figure 1. NMR Data of Compound 13.
After successfully attaching the protecting group, phthalic
anhydride (14) was utilized, and a grignard reaction was
performed at a low temperature (-78°C)7. The glassware with
phthalic anhydride and the solvent (toluene or THF) was
submerged in a cryogenic bath of dry ice and acetone while vinyl
magnesium bromide was added (Scheme 3). The reaction was
done with two different solvents: toluene and THF
(tetrahydrofuran). THF gave a better yield (29%). NMR data
showed a multiplet for the vinylic group at 5.2-6.4 ppm as well
as 7.2-8.1ppm, but a carboxylic acid peak was not seen
downfield. This, though, is not unusual with larger, more
complicated carboxylic acids.
48
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
O
O
O
O
M gBr
-78oC
9h
14
OH
O
15
Scheme 3. Grignard Reaction with Vinyl Magnesium Bromide.
There are several ways to make the methyl ester (16) of the
carboxylic acid, each of which gives varying yields. Reacting
the carboxylic acid (15) with K2CO3 and CH3I at 22° C, NaOH
and CH3I/TBAI at 40° C, and DCC and CH3OH at 0° C resulted
in 12.5%, 23.2%, and 1.8% yields, respectively. NMR validated
that the desired compound was successfully synthesized with a
singlet at 4.0ppm for the new methyl group. Other notable peaks
included multiplets at 4.8-6.4ppm and 7.2-8.1ppm. GC-MS also
confirmed this with a fragmentation at m/e=159 and m/e=131
resulting in the loss of the methoxy group and -COOCH3 group,
respectively.
O
O
O
OH
O
15
O
16
Scheme 4. Methylation Reaction.
An oxymercuration-demercuration reaction was used to close the
ring8. This was carried out by combining the methyl ester (16),
mercuric acetate, THF, and water with stirring (Scheme 5).
NaBH4 was added to give the desired compound (17). This
reaction had a decent yield (38%), but purification was
unsuccessful. Obtaining a decent NMR also proved difficult due
to the fact that there was very little material (less than 60mg).
However, GC-MS data did show several fragmentations
including m/e=133 (loss of carbonyl) and m/e=146 (loss of
oxygen) that pointed to the correct product (Figure 2).
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
49
O
O
O
O
Hg(OAc)2; H2O
NaBH4
~2h
16
O
O
17
Scheme 5. Oxymercuration-Demercuration.
Figure 2. GG-MS Data of Compound 17.
2.2 Advances in second synthetic pathway
The first step in this synthetic scheme (Scheme 1.2) was to
protect the alcohol portion of salicylic acid9. This reaction was
attempted with several different methods varying the reaction
time. The majority of the time, a mixture of the dibenzylated
product, the monobenzylated product, and benzyl alcohol was
recovered.
Instead of the above procedure, benzyl chloride was reacted with
acetone and sodium iodide to give benzyl iodide10. This
provided a more reactive halogen for the next step. Salicylic
acid (7) was then reacted with sodium hydroxide in DMF to
remove both protons on the salicylic acid. The resulting product
50
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
was reacted with the benzyl iodide to give the dibenzylated
compound (18) in 43% yield. The product was confirmed by
NMR (Figure 3) with the presence of two singlets at around 5.2
and 5.4 ppm (benzyl protons). GC-MS showed no molecular
ion, but did show the loss of the benzyl group (m/e = 227).
Figure 3. NMR Data of Dibenzylated Compound.
To synthesize the monosubstitued compound (8), the
disubstituted compound (18) was reacted with sodium hydroxide
and methanol under reflux. The monosubstituted product (8)
was produced in 96% yield. NMR confirmed this with a singlet
around 5.5ppm (the presence of a benzyl group). The GC-MS
also showed a molecular ion at m/e = 228, which corresponded
with the molecular mass of the compound.
O
O
O
O
OH
NaOH, Methanol
O
Refluxed, 2h
18
Scheme 6. Removal of Second Benzyl Group.
8
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
51
Iodination at the 6-position on the benzene ring was next11. This
is not the normal position to iodinate. A very low temperature (78°) to selectively remove the needed protons was utilized. A
complexation then occurred which directed the iodine to the 6
position. This reaction was performed on several acids (Scheme
7).
O
OH
19
1) TMEDA, s-BuLi, THF, -78oC
NO REACTION
2) Iodine, THF, -78oC to RT
3) H2O
O
I
O
o
OH
OH
7
1) TMEDA, s-BuLi, THF, -78 C
OH
2) Iodine, THF, -78oC to RT
3) H2O
OH
20
O
I
O
o
OH
O
1) TMEDA, s-BuLi, THF, -78 C
2) Iodine, THF, -78oC to RT
3) H2O
OH
O
21
22
Scheme 7. Iodination of Several Carboxylic Acids.
Salicylic acid (7) and anisic acid (21) produced the appropriate
6-iodo product with 56% and 24% yields, respectively.
Confirmation of these compounds came from NMR and GC-MS
(molecular ion at 264 m/e for the iodinated salicylic acid (20)
and 278 m/e for the iodinated anisic acid (22)).
Next, the monosubstituted product (8) was reacted with iodine
under these conditions. The expected product was not made;
only starting material was recovered. The reason for this could
be due to the bulk of the benzyl ether group. This steric
hindrance could have prevented the reaction from occurring.
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Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
A cyclization reaction of the 6-iodosalicylic acid (20) and 6iodoanisic acid (22) were performed using traditional12.
Cyclization of the 6-iodoanisic acid gave an unusual product.
Instead of the expected product, the double bond was not
detected. This was confirmed by GC-MS with a molecular ion
of 192 m/e seen in the MS (Figure 4). It is possible that some of
the reagents reduced the double bond while producing the ring.
Although this is not the expected product, it is a product that can
be used to complete this synthesis. An alternate route can be
utilized.
Figure 4. GC-MS of Cyclized Iodinated Anisic Acid.
3. Conclusion
Using model compounds to test the first synthetic pathway has
granted valuable insight into the planned route. The excellent
yields obtained through from the THP reaction with m-cresol
confirmed that such a reaction would likely be successful when
applied to the actual starting material, 4-hydroxyphthallic
anhydride. Modeling of the remainder of the first pathway with
phthalic anhydride resulted in the desired product, mellein,
confirmed by GC-MS. Formation of mellein from phthalic
anhydride strongly suggests that the first synthetic pathway
could lead to the formation of 4-hydroxymellein from 4hydroxyphthalic anhydride. However, overall low yields and the
high cost of starting materials make the first synthetic pathway
impractical for larger scale production of 4-hydroxymellein.
Research on the second synthetic pathway resulted in a
progression from salicylic acid to a monosubstitued salicylic acid
(8). Using model compounds to test an iodination step gave
promising yields, though the monosubstituted salicylic acid did
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
53
not react. One of the models (21) for the iodination was close
enough in structure to continue to the cyclization step. The
product from this reaction suggests 4-hydroxymellein could still
be formed by using the cyclized iodinated anisic acid (22).
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11. T. Nguyen, N. Chau, A. Castanet, K. Nguyen, and J.
Mortier, JOC. 72 (2007) 3419-3429.
12. Procedure from Dr. Thomas A. Bryson.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
54
Katlyn Brahmer
Protesting Angels in America : Political
Machinations Disguised as Morality *

I. Introduction
Protesters clog the streets outside the North
Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center in Charlotte,
North Carolina. The ruckus raised by clashing chants
almost drowns out the passing traffic. Signs and banners
are waving as two opposing ideologies go into battle. This
is March 20, 1996, and the cause of the protest is Angels in
America, a Pulitzer Prize-winning play depicting the AIDS
epidemic and homosexual lifestyles during the 1980s.
Most people would assume that the protest was over
homophobia, but they would be wrong. The reality is that
this protest was the product of an ongoing culture war
taking place not only in Charlotte but nationwide. This
incident is an example of a microcosm within a larger
culture war.
Homosexuality and related topics such as gay
rights, gay marriage, and the battle against homophobia
have long been hot button issues in public and private
arenas. 1 “Queer studies” has emerged in the field of history
mainly in the last 20 years. Historians such as Craig Loftin
and Gillian Frank tend to take a sociocultural approach in
*
A special thanks to Kim Graham of the Arts and Science Council,
Janice Paige of the Mecklenburg County Commissioners’ Office and
the Librarians of the Robinson-Spangler Room at Charlotte
Mecklenburg Public Library for all of their help during my research.
Additional thanks to my professor and classmates for their guidance
and support throughout this course.
1
This note is based on the media coverage from 2008/2009 such as the
widely publicized debate on California’s Proposition 8 which banned
Gay Marriage.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
55
which society and culture are the focus of their topics,
whereas Eric Marcus uses oral history to approach the
subject. 2 Culture wars have also been covered frequently.
A culture war is a political conflict that is based on
differing cultural values. Richard Jensen’s 2001 article
served as a grand narrative of every culture war from 1965
to 1995, ending right before this occurrence in Charlotte. 3
Common sources consulted when writing Gay, Lesbian,
Bisexual, and Transgender history include newspapers,
magazines and oral interviews as well as an analysis of
discourse during the time period addressed.
2
Queer Studies refers to the study of topics involving
Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender (GLBT) people, culture, etc.
Historiographically, the topic of homosexuality/ homophobia in
relation to the context of morality is generally examined from a
sociocultural perspective which is generally paired with other
approaches such as: political, microhistory, top down or bottom up,
organizational, quantitative and gender history as well as few attempts
at grand narratives. Byrne Fone’s work is a grand narrative of
homosexual and homophobic history from pre-historical times to
present day (Homophobia: A History. New York, NY: Picador, 2000
work). Gillian Franks’ is a cultural approach in conjunction with a
microhistory ("Discophobia: Antigay Prejudice and the 1979 Backlash
against Disco." Journal of the History of Sexuality 16, no. 2 (2007):
279-280. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed November
18, 2008).). W. C. Harris’ approach is political and top down as well a
cultural. ("“In My Day It Used to Be Called a Limp Wrist”: FlipFloppers, Nelly Boys, and Homophobic Rhetoric in the 2004 US
Presidential Campaign." Journal of American Culture 29, no. 3
(September 2006): 278-295. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost
(accessed October 20, 2008).) Eric Marcus has released two oral
history books, Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian
Equal Rights 1945-1990. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 1992 and
an updated 2002 edition.
3
Richard Jensen, "The Culture Wars, 1965-1995: A historian's map."
Journal of Social History 29, no. 1 (September 02, 1995): 17.
Academic Search Premier , EBSCOhost (accessed March 31, 2009).
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
56
Evidence used in this paper will include newspaper
articles from the Charlotte Observer, records from the Arts
and Science Council, and public records from Charlotte
City Council meetings and Mecklenburg county
commissioners meetings. The government records reveal
the political aspect of the confrontation while newspapers
show public opinion and provide details usually left out of
official government documents. This is the first time the
Charlotte protest of Angels in America has been examined
in detail.
The protest of Angels in America appears to be just
one facet of a political agenda in the Charlotte
Mecklenburg area that stirred up resentful feelings during
an election year. Public arts funding has been and
continues to be a source of disagreement and political
debate. A prime example at the federal level is the
National Endowment for the Arts battle for its own budget
in 1997. 4 Charlotte Repertory Theatre had reason to expect
legal and political battles because of previous similar
occurrences. Angels in America was particularly
controversial because it contained nudity, vulgar language,
and a simulated homosexual sex act. Charlotte Repertory’s
refusal to tone down the script precipitated a small legal
drama that ensued the day the production was scheduled to
open 5.
This drama worked wonders for the show’s
attendance because legal coverage is publicity money
cannot buy, especially when Judge Marvin Gray issued a
last minute court order that prevented the Charlotte
Mecklenburg Police, the District Attorney’s office and the
Sheriff’s office from intruding on the performance.
4
Judith H. Dobrzynski, “Across U.S., Brush Fires Over Money for the
Arts,” New York Times, 14 August 1997. (section unknown)
5
Tony Brown, “Theater Aims to Avert Storm Over Angels’ Drama,”
Charlotte Observer, 6 March 1996, The (NC) One-3 ed., 1A.
Retrieved February 7, 2009 from NewsBank on-line database
(America’s Newspapers) on the World Wide Web:
<http://infoweb.newsbank.com>.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
57
Although the Charlotte Repertory Theatre, its supporters,
and “artistic freedom” may have won the battle, they later
lost the war when a $2.5 million funding cut to the Arts and
Sciences Council was passed the next year, in 1997. 6
The theater company’s choice of Angels in America
served as a flashpoint that brought ideological tensions to a
head just as comparable events had been doing all through
the 1990s. Although Charlotte has become more tolerant,
one does not have to look far into the past to see its
conservative and homophobic roots. During the 1980s,
Greg Brock, a former Charlotte Observer reporter was gay
bashed not once but twice. 7 Gay bashing (an assault on a
homosexual or bisexual person triggered by their sexual
orientation) may be either verbal or physical. In this context
using the verb gay bashed denotes physical assault. These
attacks demonstrate a general social refusal to accept
homosexuals that lingers to the present day. Therefore, it
is no great stretch from abusing an openly homosexual man
to protesting a play that predominantly addresses what are
considered to be “gay issues” such as AIDS and is full of
openly homosexual characters.
Although people’s morals often influence their
political choices, there are times that politics wind up
masquerading as morals and vice versa, especially when
dealing with individual beliefs regarding the politics of
culture. It is important to evaluate all events in relation to
their true significance. Therefore it is no longer enough to
write off protests as loud mouthed conservatives or liberals
wanting to raise a fuss, and the Angels in America incident
should be considered in its proper historical context and its
ramifications evaluated. This paper will take into account
6
The Arts and Sciences Council provided the Charlotte Repertory
Theatre with funding and its budget was cut as a punitive measure.
Matt Comer, “Culture War (Reprise) ‘Southern Rapture’ documents
1996-97 arts funding melee.” QNotes, 24, January 2009, 14.
7
Eric Marcus. Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian
Equal Rights 1945-1990. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 1992.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
58
the significance of certain events within political arenas
and disclose the agendas that were brought to light during
this time of political and social turmoil in Charlotte.
II. Preemptive Strike
Charlotte Repertory Theatre started off taking
precautions based on what other theaters had done in other
cities such as Greensboro, NC and Atlanta, GA. Charlotte
Repertory Theatre’s preemptive measures included a
meeting with the District Attorney’s office to advise it of
possible issues; it also provided an early copy of the script,
multiple education programs, and an advertising warning of
adult content. 8 In addition to these precautions, after the
public outrage, Charlotte Repertory Theatre issued a fact
sheet addressing citizens’ concerns. This sheet included
answers to frequently asked questions such as, “Why is
Charlotte Rep doing a show about homosexuals?,” “Why is
this play so graphic?,” and, “Why didn’t I know there was
going to be nudity/sex onstage?” 9
These actions opened the proverbial can of worms.
Early actions by the Charlotte Repertory Theatre gave the
district attorney’s office a chance to find legal arguments to
cancel Angels. Charlotte Repertory Theatre’s educational
efforts, including community forums, stirred up more
controversy by addressing topics in the play in more detail,
misleading the public in regards to the extent of graphic
content in Angels. This is not to say the fault lies with
Charlotte Repertory Theatre. Its actions were aimed at
preventing the kind of backlash seen throughout the 1990s
in the context of culture wars.
III. Protest
The pro- and anti- Angels protests took place
outside the North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts
8
9
Brown, 1A.
“Some Facts about Charlotte Repertory Theatre’s Angels in America,”
ASC Archives, Charlotte, NC.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
59
Center on March 20, 1996. 10 Those in favor of Angels
chanted and held signs in support of artistic freedom.
Those protesting Angels decried the play’s nudity and
graphic representation of homosexuality as well as the fact
that the play was publicly funded. 11 Nudity came in the
form of a scene involving a medical exam of an AIDS
patient in order to count the patient’s lesions. The scene
included a few seconds of full frontal male nudity. 12
Angels also includes a simulated, violent homosexual sex
act. The protest against use of public funding was based on
the offense taken by many conservatively minded citizens
such as Reverend Joseph Chambers, the self identified
right-wing Christian and Senior Minister of Paw Creek
Ministries in Charlotte, along with his group, Concerned
Charlotteans. 13
Pro-Angels protesters sported signs ranging from
“Free Speech is Fundamental,” “Up With Angels,” to
several variations saying that Joe Chambers was “not an
angel,” a few of which were carried by drag queens. In Joe
Chambers’ and Concerned Charlotteans’ corner the posters
10
Ted Mellnik, “Police Separate Protest Groups so All Can Have a
Say on Angels’,” Charlotte Observer, 21 March 1996, The (NC) One-3
ed., 11A. Retrieved February 7, 2009 from NewsBank on-line database
(America’s Newspapers) on the World Wide Web:
<http://infoweb.newsbank.com
11
Charlotte Repertory Theatre went out of its way to not use public
funding in the production of this play. Martin, 63-69.
12
Tony Brown and Jim Morrill, “Nude Scene Keeping Lawyers BusyFlap Puts Angels’ in Spotlight: Demonstrations, Pro and Con, Expected
On Sold-Out Opening Night,” Charlotte Observer, 20 March 1996, The
(NC) One-3 ed., 1A. Retrieved February 7, 2009 from NewsBank online database (America’s Newspapers) on the World Wide Web:
<http://infoweb.newsbank.com>.
13
Courtesy of http://www.pawcreekministries.org (accessed 30 March
2009).
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
60
included remarks such as, “No Tax Dollars for Porn,”
“Let’s Keep Charlotte Clean” and “Vulgarity is Not Art.” 14
These slogans are based upon discourse from other public
art protests regarding homosexual themes, such as the
decade long protest of George Segal’s “Gay Liberation”
sculpture that commemorates the Stonewall Riots of 1969. 15
There were only approximately 30 anti-Angels
marchers as opposed to the 100 or so Angels supporters. It
is probable that radio coverage in the days before the
protest attracted other supporters of both Concerned
Charlotteans and Angels. Although the number of
protesters was fairly small, this controversy actually scored
a bit of national attention when a blurb was released in the
front section of the New York Times two days after the
fact. 16
Protests also took place within the media. One such
method was the press conference held by Concerned
Charlotteans and Rev. Joe Chambers. During this press
conference it was stated that, “These kinds of events should
be an example to all traditional Americans of what the
radical gay community and those who support them
actually intend for this nation.” 17
Another key example of anti-Angels sentiment
comes in the form of an article in the Charlotte Christian,
“Devils in America.” While most of the article concerns
Angels obscenity, the author asserts that what should have
been a discussion about the legal nature of the performance
was “reduced to name calling and accusations of the
14
Mellnick, 11A.
15
Carol Vogel, “The Art Market,” The New York Times, 19 June 1992.
(section unknown)
16
“Despite Uproar, Play Goes On,” New York Times, 22 March 1996,
A12. accessed March 11, 2009 from New York Times Online Archives.
17
Concerned Charlotteans Press Conference release, “Angels in
America” file, ASC Archives, Charlotte, NC.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
61
Christian right ‘narrowmindness’[sic],” which hid the
issues. 18 This statement implies the use of a set of morals
which served to obscure political issues, and it mocks
standard “liberal” reactions to conservative morals, serving
as another example of culture war discourse.
IV. Legal Battle
The North Carolina Indecent Exposure statute
states, “Any person who shall willfully expose the private
parts of his or her person in any public place and in the
presence of any other person or persons, of the opposite sex
or aids and abets in any such act…shall be guilty of a Class
2 misdemeanor.” 19 The Obscenity statute declares, “It shall
be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation to
intentionally disseminate obscenity…Violation of this is a
Class I felony.” 20 The Performing Arts Center Board of
Directors was issued warnings from the District Attorney
and the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department’s lawyer
due to legal issues with the play involving possible
violations of the aforementioned statutes. The statute
violations would result in Angels in America being shut
down. The Performing Arts Center received the
notifications because of its role as Charlotte Repertory
Theatre’s landlord. These warnings prompted them to
request either a written assurance from Charlotte Repertory
that the controversial scenes would be altered or a court
order that allowed the play to be performed without it
18
Cathy Plough, “Devils in America” The Charlotte Christian April
1996, Volume 3, No. 4, 1.
19
Paige Williams, Tony Brown and Gary L. Wright, “Judge: Let
Angels’ Play," Charlotte Observer, 21 March 1996, The (NC) One-3
ed., 1A. Retrieved February 7, 2009 from NewsBank on-line database
(America’s Newspapers) on the World Wide Web:
<http://infoweb.newsbank.com>
Statue information from Brown and Morrill, 1A.
20
Brown and Morrill, 1A.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
62
violating the North Carolina Indecent Exposure statute or
Obscenity statute.
A lawsuit was filed by the famous Charlotte lawyer
Bill Diehl on behalf of Charlotte Repertory Theatre to gain
an injunction blocking the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police,
Sheriff’s Office and District Attorney from shutting down
the production or arresting the actor participating in the
nude scene. The suit was based on a precedent set by the
United States Supreme Court that nudity in art is
considered artistic expression and covered by the First
Amendment.
According to Superior Court Judge Marvin Gray,
“The Play is an artistic presentation;…Such conduct is not
properly the subject of criminal prosecution under theories
of obscenity and/or indecent exposure.” 21 The verdict was
handed down on the day of opening night just a few hours
before the play was scheduled to begin. 22 However, the
injunction was only a limited one. Charlotte Repertory had
to file for an extension in order to protect its shows after
the first injunction’s March 30 th expiration date. Judge
Gray later issued a second injunction on March 27 th in
keeping with the findings of the first, allowing Charlotte
Repertory Theatre to continue their performance of Angels
in America. 23
The extra publicity from continuing news coverage
as well as legal issues helped to ensure Charlotte Rep a
large audience. According to the Charlotte Observer, the
theater actually had to add an extra performance because
21
Court records 20 March 1996, ASC Archives, Charlotte, NC.
22
Tony Brown and Gary L. Wright, “Angels’ Dustup May Stay Before
the Public,” Charlotte Observer, 28 March 1996, The (NC) One-3 ed.,
1A. Retrieved February 7, 2009 from NewsBank on-line database
(America’s Newspapers) on the World Wide Web:
<http://infoweb.newsbank.com>
23
Ibid
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
63
many of their previously booked shows were sold out. 24
Therefore, this controversy was actually good for Charlotte
Rep’s profit margin.
V. Battle for the Budget
a. Individual Contributors to the ASC
Many private citizens from the CharlotteMecklenburg area were offended by Angels in America. A
few of them were contributors to the Arts and Science
Council. One supporter wrote in withdrawing his support
because he thought “the content of the upcoming play to be
vulgar,” and he said he would “not support this kind of
‘art’.” 25 According to Arts and Science Council Executive
Assistant to President & CEO, Kim Graham, “This is an
example of some letters the ASC received from donors who
disapproved of the Angels in America production by an
ASC cultural organization.” 26 These letters and the
withdrawal of support by former donors are a small
indicator of other budget cuts carried out on larger levels.
b. City
Although the Arts and Science Council (ASC)
funded many things other than Angels in America, it
quickly became clear during the May 13 Charlotte City
Council budget meeting that Angels would once again
become the focus. The ASC provides funding for the Mint
Museum of Art, Discovery Place and even grants for
applicants such as public school teachers, allowing them to
bring artists into their classrooms. 27
24
Ibid
25
Quoted from a private letter to the ASC on March 18th, 1996. This
letter will not be cited more fully in respect to ASC wishes regarding
privacy and privileged information.
26
27
Kim Graham, interview by Katlyn Brahmer, 26 March 2009.
Charlotte City Council Minutes, 13 May 1996. Minute Book 109,
647-48.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
64
All of these positive contributions were countered
by people such as Mrs. Debbie Ware, who argued that the
budget needed to be lowered at the very least by the amount
of money contributed to Charlotte Repertory Theatre in
order to fight off the infiltration of smut. This opinion was
shared by Rev. Joseph Chambers in his argument that
people forced to contribute to the ASC funding and
Charlotte Repertory Theatre through taxes were offended
by the use of their money for profanity and vulgarity. Sam
Wilson reasoned that although the ASC has the right to
produce Angels and whatever else, they should not use
public funds to do so. A compromise was suggested by
Harry Reader, pastor of Christ Covenant Presbyterian
Church, that the mandatory contributions via taxes to the
ASC be replaced with tax breaks for voluntary
contributors. 28
After those speaking for the ASC on behalf of the
other good work it engaged in and those speaking against
the ASC for its funding of Angels whether because of
morals or use of public funding, one lone man stood up and
defended both the ASC and Angels, David Ferebee. His
speech made the point that ASC funding should be
increased instead of reduced, and claimed that in fact, the
arts served to supplement the sub-par education system and
would attract corporations. However, his impassioned plea
was somewhat overshadowed by an admission he made to
the Charlotte City Council. The admission reflected in the
minutes stated, “He’s gay, and tired of being held hostage
by preachers and politicians. He is not evil or destructive
or immoral and he is tired of being portrayed that way by
people who don’t know him.” 29 This just served to reenforce the notion that the battle over how to spend public
funding was in reality about morality.
28
29
Ibid.
Charlotte City Council Minutes, 13 May 1996. Minutes Book 109,
650.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
65
The budget meeting on May 28 turned into a repeat
of the first meeting. During this meeting, four people
addressed the City Council, all of them advising council
members to pull the ASC funding. The first speaker,
Albert Moehring, was the founder and conductor of the
Charlotte Philharmonic Orchestra. He advised the City
Council to cut ASC funding because its authority over the
community made it, “accountable to a higher standard...to
God.” On the other hand, Mr. Moehring may have had a
personal axe to grind because his organization was deemed
ineligible for ASC grant funds by the ASC Board of
Directors. 30 By the end of the meeting arts funding was
approved by the Charlotte City Council in the 1997 budget;
however, a Citizens Task Force was formed to look more
closely at the issue of future public funding for the arts. 31
c. County
Although the story of public arts funding ended
happily in the case of the city of Charlotte, when it came
time to discuss public arts funding in Mecklenburg County,
the, “Gang of Five” emerged. The “Gang of Five” was the
four Republican Commissioners—Tom Bush, Joel Carter,
George Higgins, and Bill James—and a Democrat, Hoyle
Martin. This politically conservative group managed to
pull the $2.5 million allotment from the Arts and Sciences
Council. Their historic 5-4 vote revoked public arts
funding mostly because of their objections to Angels in
America and a desire to prevent funding to other similar
projects in the future.
In the May 29 Board of Commissioners meeting
people were invited to come speak before the Board
concerning funding of agencies mentioned in the 1997
fiscal year budget. Of the fifty speakers recognized in this
meeting, four addressed the issue of Arts and Science
30
Minutes reflect that funding was denied. Charlotte City Council
Minutes, 28 May 1996. Minutes Book 109, 709.
31
For more information regarding the Citizens Task Force please
reference section VI.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
66
Council funding: three spoke against and only one in
support. Those three against ASC funding were Rev. Joe
Chambers, Harry Reeder, and Debbie Ware, three of the
same people who failed to convince the City Council to
revoke ASC money. Michael Marsicano of the ASC was
the only one to speak in favor of the ASC budget request. 32
On November 19 the Board of Commissioners
received from the Citizens Task Force the same report
delivered to the City Council. Only a small representation
of the original task force was present, with four speakers,
Rev. Joe Chambers, Debbie Ware, Rev. Claude Alexander
and David Ferebee. 33
A tense scene was witnessed the night of the
Board’s final vote on public arts funding, April 1, 1997.
Around 700 people crowded into the CharlotteMecklenburg Government Center: straight and gay, young
and old, many with signs and others with Bibles. The
Commissioners took four hours of citizen comments, after
which they discussed ASC funding amongst themselves.
Commissioner Darryl Williams labeled the action to cut
funding to the ASC because of Angels, “the most damaging
piece of legislation we could ever vote on in this
community…” He believed that using the gay community
as a reason to cut art funding was wrong. 34 One
commissioner, Lloyd Scher, went so far as to call those in
favor of the proposal, “neo-Nazis.” This charge was
particularly harsh when seen in light of the fact that Scher
is Jewish. Although Scher’s criticism was severe, it was
not unique. Throughout various culture wars, opposing
sides have used inflammatory language to undermine the
32
Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners Minutes, 29 May
1996,743-746.
33
Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners Minutes, 19
November 1996. Pg 950.
34
Phuong Ly, “Anti-Gay Funding Cut in Charlotte, North Carolina,”
Charlotte Observer, 2 April 1997.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
67
other point of view, such as conservatives calling liberals
“commies” or liberals calling conservatives “fascists” as
Scher did.
In the end, the “Gang of Five” triumphed 5-4 over
the other commissioners and passed the, “Resolution of the
Mecklenburg County Board of County Commissioners in
Support of Traditional Family Values and Further, A
Resolution of Support of the Arts and Sciences, Where the
Arts and Sciences Promote a Wholesome Family Agenda
and Further, a Resolution Relieving the Arts & Science
Council of the Distribution of County Taxpayer Dollars to
the Arts.” 35 One of the main points of this resolution is that
the Arts and Science Council, “failed to establish any
acceptable community standards...” The resolution further
stipulated that anything depicting family roles as other than
heterosexual married couples or single parents, “[is] not
compatible with our community’s moral beliefs.” 36 This
reliance on moral rhetoric for political purposes shows the
politicians’ reliance on morality for political success, such
as being re-elected.
d. Arts and Science Council
It is also important to note the actions of the Arts
and Science Council during this period of turmoil. During
the March 27 meeting for the Arts and Science Council
Board of Directors, member Bill Simms stated, “there is
some fence mending to do from a political
point…Relationships must be mended and discussions with
35
“Resolution of the Mecklenburg County Board of County
Commissioners in Support of Traditional Family Values and
Further, A Resolution of Support of the Arts and Sciences,
Where the Arts and Sciences Promote a Wholesome Family
Agenda and Further, a Resolution Relieving the Arts & Science
Council of the Distribution of County Taxpayer Dollars to the
Arts,” 1 April 1997, Mecklenburg County Board of
Commissioners Archives, Charlotte, NC.
36
Ibid
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
68
City Council members opposed to Angels.” 37 During
another meeting on April 24 the members were warned of
possible budget cuts due to the negative Angels publicity. 38
The Arts and Science Council later produced a
handout for supporters listing meeting dates and the type of
government agency to be considered in order to bolster
support. According to this handout possible outcomes
included, “Sustained Funding, Sustained Funding &
Content Restrictions, Sustained Funding & Regranting
Public Funds to Charlotte Repertory Theatre, Cut in Funds
Equal to ASC-BOG to Charlotte Repertory Theatre, and
More Severe Cuts.” 39
VI. Citizens Task Force
The Task Force formed by the Charlotte City
Council consisted of 8 religious leaders, 6 art professionals
and 13 citizens of various other professions (27 in total). A
memo reporting findings was sent out on November 6,
1996. A formal report was presented during the December
2 City Council meeting. The four main points of the Task
Force’s report were “Mutual Respect, Legal, Community
Standards and Process.” According to Rev. Joe Chambers,
“Mutual Respect” is being defined as, “that no group of
citizens should be entitled to deprive or harm another group
of citizens.” 40
“Legal” refers to the production not being in
violation of any state or federal laws or statutes.
37
ASC Board of Directors meeting minutes 27 March 1996, “Angels in
America” file, ASC Archives, Charlotte, NC.
38
ASC Board of Directors meeting minutes 26 April 1996, “Angels in
America” file, ASC Archives, Charlotte, NC.
39
“Advocacy Timeline: City of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County,”
“Angels in America” file, ASC archives, Charlotte, NC.
40
Charlotte City Council Minutes, 2 December 1996. Minutes Book
110, pg 400.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
69
Community Standards was the most confusing topic
discussed because, as Rev. Randy Votsch put it, “How do
you define and protect the community standards of a
community as broad and diverse as the City of Charlotte?”
All of these pieces combined into the last segment of
“Process” or rather the “process of funding decisions.”
When funding for public art programs is suggested the
previous three criteria must be taken into consideration and
in this way the Task Force believed that another Angels
could be avoided. 41 This same information was presented
later to the Mecklenburg County Commissioners during
their own board meeting. 42
VII. Epilogue
It appears that Charlotte’s Angels incident was a
harbinger of other battles nationwide that were brewing. In
1997, the Angels controversy was featured prominently in a
lengthy New York Times piece regarding funding for the
Arts and the other budget battles taking place. During
1997, many other Arts programs, such as the National
Endowment for the Arts, were fighting for funding. 43
When the budget for the Arts and Sciences Council
was cut because of public outrage over Angels in America,
many programs suffered. Among these were the North
Carolina Dance Company, a local science museum, and a
summer program for minority students at Opera Carolina. 44
A similar occurrence took place in Cobb County, Georgia
after the Terrence McNally play, “Lips Together, Teeth
Apart,” was performed. This play also includes
41
Ibid, pg 399-402
42
Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners Minutes, 19
November 1996. Pg 950.
43
Judith H. Dobrzynski, “Across U.S., Brush Fires Over Money for the
Arts,” New York Times, 14 August 1997. (section unknown)
44
Ibid
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
70
homosexuality as a central theme and led to the revocation
of all arts funding in that county.
However, the ASC programs did not have to suffer
in poverty for too long. After one false start in the August
12, 1997 County Commissioners meeting during which the
vote to rescind the April 1 resolution lost once again 5 -4,
funding was restored on February 16, 1999, and a further
$500,000 was added to the Arts and Sciences Council
budget. 45 This monetary victory was also supplemented by
a political victory of sorts. Four of the notorious “Gang of
Five” left. 46 Tom Bush, Joel Carter and George Higgins
chose not to run for re-election in 1998. Joel Carter was
defeated in 1998. Only Bill James won his seat again. 47
Tom Bush issued an apology in a 2007 interview to the
Charlotte Observer for his role in pulling the arts funding
saying, “I regret that we allowed the debate to be polarized
into (whether) you either favor or disfavor homosexuality.
It should have remained a debate on the role of government
funding.” 48 Bush’s statement demonstrates how he was
caught up in the culture wars of the 1990s and allowed
political discourse to become entangled with morality. It is
possible that Carter and Higgins felt similarly as they did
not seek re-election during the next election cycle.
Today, thanks to the Citizens Task Force, all Arts
and Science Grant applications include a clause binding all
45
Martin, 63-69. Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners
Minutes, 16 February 1999. pg 483
46
Martin 63-69.
47
1996 and 1998 November General Election Results from the
Mecklenburg County Board of Elections.
48
Jennifer Wing Rothacker, “Make That ‘Gang of 5,’ Minus 1,”
Charlotte Observer, 27 August 2007, The (NC) One-3 ed., 1B.
Retrieved February 7, 2009 from NewsBank on-line database
(America’s Newspapers) on the World Wide Web:
<http://infoweb.newsbank.com>.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
71
funding recipients to follow both North Carolina and
Federal laws, with loss of funds as penalty. 49 It also seems
that Angels and this incident are not quite finished with
Charlotte yet. Southern Rapture by Eric Coble is slated to
open April 15 th of this year. Southern Rapture was
commissioned by the Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte to tell
the story of Angels all over again. According to their
website, “Southern Rapture is a sidesplitting fictionalized
comedy based on the defining battle between the city’s
artists, politicians and innocent bystanders over a local
production of Angels in America.” 50
VIII. Conclusion
In summation, culture wars have been fought in
many different places and on many different levels. The
controversy surrounding the performance of Angels in
America in Charlotte, North Carolina, is a microcosm
representing the national conflicts occurring throughout the
1990s and into present day. The events stemming from
Angels in America have continued to affect Charlotte for
over a decade through funding loss and return, constant
comparisons of other plays to Angels, and lately, through a
comedic rehash of said events. Through an analysis of
newspaper articles, government and Arts and Science
Council records, this paper has taken into account the
significance of both political events and agendas in the
context of morality and found that although these things led
to a period of political and social turmoil for citizens of
Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, overall, respect for
diversity has flourished.
49
ASC grant application, “Angels in America” file, ASC Archives,
Charlotte, NC.
50
Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte, “Southern Rapture” description,
“Angels in America” file, ASC Archives, Charlotte, NC.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
72
The Development and Use of the Dies Irae
Jason Barrios

The Dies Irae is a chant that has been heard for centuries,
and it continues to be heard around the world. During its history,
this text has been set in new and exciting ways by composers
such as Mozart, Berlioz, and Verdi. The melody of the Dies Irae
has come to be associated with the macabre and spooky, and
therefore, has been used in several films such as The Shining,
Nightmare Before Christmas, and Sleeping with the Enemy
(Wright 37). With all of this success, one cannot help but
wonder how this chant from the liturgy could have become so
popular with composers in recent centuries. To see why
composers still use this simple, yet powerful melody as the basis
of many of their works, one must examine the development of
this melody from its monophonic inception through its use in
polyphony during the Renaissance Era of music.
To understand what the Dies Irae actually is, it is important
to look at the origin of the sequence in the medieval world. A
sequence is defined as an addition of music with text to a preexisting chant (Wright 36). The sequence flourished from c8501150 and had a strong relationship with the Alleluia (Sadie
“Norton/Grove” 685). The actual origin of the sequence remains
a mystery, but research has shown it to have been inspired by the
Byzantines and the Greeks in France before spreading
throughout the West (Seay 52). The sequence arose from the
melisma on the final vowel of the Alleluia and was lengthened
and supplied with a text set in syllabic style (Ulrich 47). Since
this form followed the Alleluia it became known as the
“sequence” from the Latin root sequor, meaning to follow
(Ulrich 48). Notker of St. Gall was the first to use the sequence,
and he developed it until it began to reflect antiphonal singing
(Sadie “Norton/Grove” 685).
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The Dies Irae sequence itself has been credited to the
Italian monk Thomas of Celano, who died c1250 (Sadie “The
New Grove Volume 7” 332). The piece is thought to have
grown out of a rhymed trope of the responsorial chant of Libera
me, of which the verse, “Dies illa, dies irae” begins with the
same melodic phrase as the sequence of the actual Dies Irae
(Sadie “The New Grove Volume 7” 332). This chant is perhaps
the most famous of all medieval sequences and means “Day of
Wrath” (Wright 36). The Dies Irae was written during the
thirteenth century and continues to serve as the sequence for the
missa pro defunctis, the Requiem Mass, in the Roman Catholic
Church (Wright 36). The Requiem Mass will be an important
focus for many of the composers during the Renaissance and will
be set differently by each of them.
The text of this sequence speaks about the hellfire that
threatens every soul on Judgment Day (Wright 37). Although
the text is frightening, the Dies Irae tune consists mostly of a
stepwise melody that was typical of medieval syllabic chant
(Wright 37). This proves a point that the style of Gregorian
chant, of which the Dies Irae is considered to be a part, rarely
tries to emphasize or intensify particular words (Wright 37).
Chant is only supposed to provide an environment for individual
contemplation and does not try to “convert” the listener (Wright
37).
The number of stanzas that the Dies Irae contains has
been debated for centuries. Some believe that a later and
anonymous author added the final unrhymed couplet with the
words “Amen” (Sadie “The New Grove Volume 7” 332). As is
typical of sequences, the music setting employs the double verse
structure, in which pairs of stanzas are sung to the same music
(Roden 18). Another theme that this sequence represents is the
idea of a plea for mercy, ultimately making it about redemption
rather than death (Roden 19). The Dies Irae is one of the
sequences used along with the Ordinary of the Mass in the
church setting (Sternfeld 67). The melody is part of the Proper
of the Mass and would follow the item after the Gradual, usually
the Alleluia (Ulrich 48). Along with sequences, tropes were also
used in the Roman Catholic Church, but by the thirteenth
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century, tropes fell completely out of fashion and then
disappeared (Wright 37). Sequences grew in popularity leading
to a new idea in the Renaissance Era of music.
The sequence was composed all throughout Europe and
began to threaten the standard observance of the church (Ulrich
48). During the Renaissance, these lengthy musical additions
were viewed with suspicion as fabrications of the superstitious
Middle Ages (Wright 37). As a result of these fears, sequences
were cast out of the church by the reform-minded Council of
Trent, and the Requiem Mass was not standardized until after
this time (Randel 695). Only five sequences of the medieval
world were kept by the Council of Trent, one of them being the
Dies Irae for the Requiem Mass (Sadie “The New Grove
Volume 7” 332). However, this sequence was not incorporated
into the Roman Missal until the papacy of Pius V in 1570 (Sadie
“The New Grove Volume 7” 332). An interesting idea to note is
that this chant is used today as a votive Mass on behalf of the
dead, and may be sung on the day of burial and on succeeding
anniversaries (Sadie “The New Grove Volume 21” 203). This
shows that this sequence is used in its original and monophonic
form even in today’s society.
During the Renaissance, many composers chose to leave
out the Dies Irae sequence in their compositions. Most did not
have a choice because of the authority of the Council of Trent.
Requiem Masses in the Renaissance generally employed
Gregorian intonations at the beginnings of movements or
sections because Gregorian chant was used as the basis in
forming the music of polyphonic works (Randel 695). Requiem
Masses were set polyphonically in the Renaissance by many
composers; however, polyphonic settings of sequences such as
the Dies Irae were rare and were set rather as votive antiphons
(Sadie “The Norton/Grove” 686). Thus one can see that the Dies
Irae, although famously used throughout the medieval era, was
ultimately left out when it came to the Renaissance age.
The polyphonic settings of the Requiem Mass did not
begin for the Renaissance until the 15th century (Randel 695).
Although individual movements of the Requiem Mass were set
to polyphony before the 15th century, the first mention of a
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75
complete setting is seen in Guillaume Dufay’s will (Arnold
1558). In this will, Dufay requested that his own setting should
be given the day after his funeral (Arnold 1558). While
numerous scholars have identified this work as the first Requiem
Mass of the Renaissance, this piece has, unfortunately, been lost
to the flow of history (Randel 695).
Dufay was an early Renaissance composer who made
great strides in the development of freedom in the cantus firmus
Mass (Sternfeld 168). It has been said that the Mass that he had
composed represented a “final apotheosis,” which crowned the
composer’s career (Sternfeld 168). This Mass is considered to
be his “opus ultimum” and has been classified today as a
Requiem Mass by many scholars (Sternfeld 168). While this
work has been lost to history, Dufay was a great pioneer in
paving the way for many composers to follow in the Renaissance
Era. With the many forms that Dufay adopted, “He actively
contributed towards establishing a new development in music
whose course was directed in a decisive manner” (Sternfeld
168).
Johannes Ockeghem is another composer who is
important in the development of Requiem Masses in the
Renaissance, even though he did not include the Dies Irae in
these works (Randel 695). The Requiem Mass of Ockeghem is
notable not only in its expressive qualities, but it is also
considered to be the earliest extant polyphonic Mass for the
deceased (Sternfeld 171). In this Mass, Ockeghem only set the
settings of the Introit, Kyrie, Gradual, Tract and Offertory
(Ulrich 130). It is interesting to note that Ockeghem’s works
were based on the cantus firmus principle just as Dufay’s were,
which allows him to be considered a student of Dufay (Sternfeld
171). There was one instance in which Ockeghem used the chant
of the Dies Irae, and that was at the end of his lament on the
death of Gilles Binchois entitled Mort, tu as navre/ Miserere
(Sadie “The New Grove Volume 7” 332).
A third composer who made great advances in the
development of Requiem Masses in the Renaissance age was
Pierre de La Rue. La Rue wrote more Masses than any of his
contemporaries, such as Palestrina and Victoria, and his
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Requiem is considered by many to be one of the finest
compositions of the time period (Harman 206). La Rue’s works
are modeled on Ockeghem’s, which indirectly may have taken
Dufay’s works as a model (Sadie “The New Grove Volume 21”
204). His Requiem Mass poses the challenge of a B-flat that is
sung below the bass clef (Sternfeld 202). Thus this work
demonstrates a true bass range, and ends the series of steps that
had been begun by Ockeghem before him (Ulrich 130). It has
been said that the Requiem unfolds in a “characteristic full, even
thick, texture in spite of frequent duets, dialogue between
alternating pairs of voices, and passages in imitation” (Brown
156). Most of the work is in four voices and uses the lower
ranges and darker vocal colors to paint the somber purpose of the
Mass (Ulrich 130). At times he even wrote with the fervor and
intensity of Josquin des Prez (Ulrich 130). Many of La Rue’s
other works leave an impression of sadness and ultimately
represent the fast-vanishing world of music associated with
Ockeghem and his contemporaries (Sternfeld 202). All in all, La
Rue wrote a Requiem that can be described as a piece of
“astonishing originality” (Sternfeld 202).
Musicologists tell us that about forty-one settings of the
Requiem Mass have survived (Sadie “The Norton/Grove” 623).
These settings have survived from between the life of Ockeghem
through the end of the 16th century, and include the compositions
of La Rue, Cristobal de Morales, and Giovanni Palestrina (Sadie
“The Norton/Grove” 623). As the reader has seen, it was
common for Renaissance composers to leave out the Dies Irae
because it had not been standardized by the Council of Trent
until only a few years before the Baroque Era began. However,
among these forty-one settings that survived, two of great
significance include this famous sequence (Sadie “The New
Grove” Volume 21 205).
The first composer who actually went against the church
and used the Dies Irae in his composition was Antoine
Brummel. Before 1570, Requiems reflected local traditions in
the choice of certain Proper items and tended not to contain a
polyphonic setting of the sequence; however, Antoine Brummel
disregarded all that and decided to use the Dies Irae (Randel
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695). Although there is not much information on the Mass itself,
we know that Brummel’s Requiem was exceptional in containing
a polyphonic setting of the Dies Irae (Sadie “The New Grove”
Volume 7 332).
Another composer who used the Dies Irae in his
Requiem Mass was the Spanish composer Cristobal de Morales.
Most of his works were liturgical and his best known work
includes the two sets of Magnificat (Sadie “The New Grove”
Volume 12 557). His two Requiems and the Officium
defunctorum are considered the most extreme examples of
Morales’s sobriety of style (Sadie “The New Grove Volume” 12
557). This Mass includes the items of the Proper, but is different
from the rest of his Masses because it is homophonic and austere
in style (Sternfeld 392). Morales was considered to be a
precursor of Palestrina and was like Josquin des Prez because he
was as deeply concerned with expressing the meaning of the text
as he was with clarity, which lends itself to the “sobriety of
style” that, is attributed to Morales (Sadie “The New Grove”
Volume 12 557).
Throughout the Renaissance Era there were several other
composers who composed Requiem Masses without the
sequence of the Dies Irae and presented a connection between
monophony and polyphony. One of these composers is Tomas
Luis de Victoria. His Requiem draws upon plainsong melodies
as does Palestrina (Sternfeld 401). The plainchant version of this
Mass is beautiful and contrasts strangely with some of the
dramatic settings of the later centuries of Mozart and his
contemporaries (Arnold 1558). Two other composers who can
be mentioned for their development of Requiem Masses,
although they did not use the Dies Irae in their compositions,
include Clemens and Francisco Guerrero. The Requiem by
Clemens was based on the appropriate plainsong chants which
helped to further the connection between monophony and
polyphony (Sternfeld 205). In his Requiems, Francisco Guerrero
who was influenced by Cristobal de Morales, alternates
plainsong with polyphony in which the chant is heard in the
upper voice (Sternfeld 396). All of this helps to show the
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connection that existed between monophony of the medieval
world and the polyphony of the Renaissance.
Other composers include Claudin de Sermisy, Jacques
Mauduit, and Du Caurroy. Sermisy’s Requiem Mass should be
singled out because of its absolute respect for liturgical tradition
(Sternfeld 186). His music was mainly homophonic like
Morales, and certain Masses of his have connections with
Josquin des Prez and his school (Sternfeld 186). Jacques
Mauduit’s Requiem Mass was sung for the funeral of Ronsard at
the College de Boncourt and is unique because it contains
instrumental participation (Sternfeld 186). Lastly, Du Caurroy’s
Requiem reflects a certain contrapuntal skill in music (Sternfeld
186).
The Dies Irae was not used often throughout the
Renaissance because of the absolute power controlled by the
Council of Trent. Before this event, the Dies Irae was cut out of
the Requiem Mass because it had been believed to have been a
threat to the supreme rule of the church. After 1575, the Dies
Irae would be used by many composers and this would summon
a new age of music. This age would come to be known as the
Baroque Era of music. Although this most famous sequence was
not used throughout most of the Renaissance Age, it undoubtedly
influenced the time period that followed.
Works Cited
Arnold, Denis. The New Oxford Companion to Music Volume 2.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.
Brown, Howard M. and Louise K. Stein. Music in the
Renaissance. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1999.
Harman, Alec. Man And His Music: Mediaeval and Early
Renaissance Music. New Jersey: Essential Books, 1958.
Randel, Don Michael. The New Harvard Dictionary of Music.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,
1986.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
79
Roden, Timothy. “Later Medieval Chant: Tropes, Sequences,
and the Liturgical Drama of
Hildegard of Bingen.” Anthology for Music in Western
Civilization Volume A: Antiquity Through the
Renaissance. Ed. Craig Wright and Bryan Simms.
California: Thomson Schirmer, 2006. 18-23.
Sadie, Stanley. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians Volumes 7, 12, and 21. London: Macmillan
Publishers Limited, 2001.
---. The Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music. New
York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1988.
Seay, Albert. Music in the Medieval World. Illinois: Waveland
Press, Inc., 1975.
Sternfeld, F. W. Music From the Middle Ages to the
Renaissance. New York: Praeger Publishers Inc., 1973.
Ulrich, Homer. A History of Music and Musical Style. New
York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1963.
Wright, Craig. “Later Medieval Chant: Tropes, Sequences, and
the Liturgical Drama of Hildegard of Bingen.” Music in
Western Civilization. Ed. Bryan Simms. California:
Thomson Schirmer, 2006.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
80
Adam Raskoskie
Psychoanalysis and the Yeshiva:
Cultural Cores, Criticism, and Creativity in
the Novels of Chaim Potok

Since the dawn of the Age of Reason four hundred years
ago, a divide has run through the domain of human thought.
Philosophers and other thinkers often categorize intellectual
activity into two realms: the secular and the religious. While it is
overly simplistic to say that the dichotomy is complete—there
are many degrees between the two poles—the issue has
generated much writing and dialogue, continuing to the present
day. An important twentieth-century voice on the subject is
Chaim Potok, a Jewish-American author whose books—and
life—addressed the question of whether a religious person can
find meaning in the realm of the secular intellect without
abandoning his religious moorings. Potok formulated a theory of
core-to-core culture confrontation which allows him to draw
creativity from the tension between the secular and religious
traditions, and he explores this hypothesis in almost all of his
major fiction. Although Potok’s argument is compelling, it
would be rash to say that he has found a perfect solution to this
problem. Indeed, Potok himself does not profess to have done
so. As the sequence of the novels progresses, his view manifests
more and more shades of gray, until he concludes that the issue
is perhaps not quite as simple as he first thought. Co-existence is
still possible, but sacrifices must be made to compensate and
maintain balance. In Potok’s ultimate scheme, the union
between religious and secular is good, but a sacrifice must be
made to keep order and ensure that one core does not overwhelm
the other.
For much of humanity’s history, the above-mentioned
dual mindset did not even exist. Before the Enlightenment,
people generally took a unified, theocentric view of the world
that paid no attention to any divide between secular and religious
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thought simply because none was perceived. In his seminal
1966 work Issues in Science and Religion, Ian B. Barbour writes
that people used to attribute the things they could not understand
directly to God without further quibble: “God’s purposes in
creating things, though not always discernible, constitute the
ultimate explanation of their behavior” (17). This context makes
the question of whether either faith or secular intellect is superior
over its opposite null, and it is worth noting in conjunction with
this point that many of the great early Western thinkers,
logicians, and psychologists were religious men.
The intellectual environment began to resemble
something more similar to the present situation in the eighteenth
century. With the Enlightenment came a new emphasis on the
power of human reason to solve the mysteries of both the
physical universe and human behavior. Barbour lists three
changes stemming from the Enlightenment that influenced the
popular perception of God and science: nature viewed as a “selfsufficient deterministic mechanism,” God as a “debatable
hypothesis,” and confidence in the perfectibility of humans
through reason (57). The first shift, beginning with Newton, led
many to believe that constant supervision and maintenance from
God was not necessary for the continued existence of the
universe. Interacting natural forces were what sustained the
world, and when those forces were not obvious, it was because
science had not yet discovered them, not because God’s direct
action was filling the gap (59). This conclusion led to the advent
of the idea that the existence of God was debatable—if science
has determined God to be nonessential, then it is short step to the
question of whether he really exists. The effect of this line of
thought was not always atheism, but it was now easier to take
issue with the traditional concept of God (60). Furthermore, it
was now possible to conceive of the secular critical method and
religion as being opposed and potentially irreconcilable systems.
The nineteenth century, which saw the advent of Darwin and
Freud, continued and magnified the trends of the eighteenth.
Potok himself traces the development of the secular intellectual
method in a 1987 article published in Religion and Literature.
He writes,
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[The systems originating with Voltaire, Diderot,
Rousseau, Kant, Hume, and others] replaced the
previous general civilization on the western side
of our planet, the civilization known as
Christendom . . . . It [the new civilization] is
‘secular’ because it makes no appeal to the
supernatural. We do it alone. Absolutes are
provisional. Truths are with small t’s . . . . It is
“humanist” because of its emphasis on the
individual qua individual, not as a member of
the tribe but as a person, as a self riddled with
problems. (2)
This mindset has continued to prevail through the twentieth
century and into the twenty-first. Modern thought rests on the
reliability of the independent intellect and the superiority of the
secular critical method over the religious tradition of faith and
authority. Many consider modes of thought that do not accept
the secular framework to be backwards.
Enter Chaim Potok, who, although he was born into a
very conservative orthodox Jewish world in the Bronx and was
raised to hold his faith in unquestioning regard, could not resist
the call of the secular knowledge and art of the Western world,
despite being, as critic Joan Zlotnick notes, “bound by the values
of a radically different subculture” (13). In a certain sense,
Potok’s childhood might be termed pre-Enlightenment:
everything was explained and its worth evaluated in terms of
religion. Potok, however, was aware of the world outside
Orthodoxy and deeply desired to take in its intellectual and
artistic wealth. In his article “Culture Confrontation in Urban
America: A Writer’s Beginnings,” Potok writes
But beyond the tiny Hannibal of our apartment,
there was an echoing world that I longed to
embrace; it streamed in upon me, its books,
movies, and music, appealing not only to the
mind but also to the senses. Faintly redolent of
potential corruptions of the flesh, dark with the
specter of conquest by assimilation, it seemed to
hold out at the same time the promise of worldly
wisdom, of tolerance, of reward for merit and
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83
achievement, and—the most precious promise of
all—the creations of the great minds of men.
(161)
Potok had no desire to leave behind his religion; indeed, he
remained an observant Jew until his death from brain cancer in
2001. Nevertheless, he was enthralled by the richness of
knowledge outside his Judaic world and hungered to embrace it,
first by painting, which he quickly abandoned due to familial
pressure, and then through literature. In doing so, Potok risked
not only separating himself from his family, but also grievously
wounding them, since as he writes in “Culture Confrontations in
Urban America,” “to lose a child to an alien culture is to suffer a
lifetime of anguish and pain” (162).
In the above essay, Potok describes in some detail his
first encounter with the world of literature and the manner in
which it opened his eyes to Western culture. He certainly was
not predisposed to make this discovery, for, as he writes, fiction
has no place in the orthodox Jewish tradition. Jewish
scholarship finds intellectual expression in the study of the
Talmud (in which Potok was well-versed), and “fiction, even
serious fiction . . . is at best a frivolity, at worst a menace” (163).
Nevertheless, when Potok first read Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead
Revisited at the age of fifteen, he immediately felt a profound
shift in perspective, despite the fact that a “chasm” of culture and
ideology separated Waugh’s Catholic world from Potok’s Jewish
one (164). As Potok fell in love with the secular literary
tradition and continued to delve into its depths, he discovered
that it was, in a certain sense, antithetical to his religious
upbringing. Potok argues that literature is inherently
iconoclastic; the writer must destroy the illusions embraced by
society. Nothing, according to Potok, is sacred to the “serious
novelist,” even one’s religious upbringing (164). This presents a
certain difficulty to an author who, like Potok, wants to embrace
both the literary and religious traditions, even though he knows
that literature must be free to say whatever it needs to say about
religion. How, then, does Potok say to Harold Ribalow in a
1980 interview, “the point I’m trying to make is that you can be
inside the core of Judaism and at the same time enjoy the world”
(15)?
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Potok can make this statement because he does not deny
that difficulty exists and, rather than ignoring it, he develops a
theory for making the very divide itself meaningful. In an article
for Religion and Literature, he writes, “it was a problem of how
to bring together antagonistic and conflicting passions: my love
for my own tradition on the one hand, and my love for modern
literature on the other—a literature that glories in its image—
breaking stance, its nihilism, its cool ironic suspicion of human
emotions, and it basic skepticism regarding all givens from the
past” (2). Potok attempts to answer the problem through his idea
of core-to-core cultural confrontation. He sees secular Western
civilization as a sort of umbrella culture, underneath which exist
smaller, more specific cultures, such as Judaism and Christianity
(Urban 162). By Potok’s definition, culture is the “unique
responses” that individual clusters of people work out in order to
make sense of life. Culture provides the answers to the “hard
questions” of life, and the adherents of a particular culture are
often called upon to defend it even at the cost of their lives (163).
Potok does not explicitly say as much, but his implication seems
to be that in order for a culture to be significant, in order for it to
provide the answers, it must be meaningful enough to its people
to warrant defense. The significant point here is that cultures
which profess different answers to life’s questions can and do
come into conflict, sometimes in a quite serious manner.
When Potok mentions the concept of a “core,” he is
referring to what lies at the heart of a culture, its most defining
elements; it is the part of a culture that “gives configuration to
experience” (Urban 165). Potok faces a confrontation between
art (especially literature), which is an expression of the secular
intellectual core, and the Talmudic study and orthodoxy that are
core to the orthodox Jewish civilization. The core of
Westernized secular intellectual criticism has been described
above. Orthodox Judaism makes the other significant claim on
Potok’s mind. The particular brand of orthodoxy that receives
most of Potok’s attention is Hasidism, a sect that arose in Poland
in the eighteenth century. Mainstream Orthodox Judaism places
great emphasis on rabbinic scholarship, which encourages
intellectual activity as long as it proceeds in the approved
manner. Curiosity must be bound by tradition, and free inquiry
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85
must subject itself to authority, but within that framework, a
“process of interpretation and reinterpretation” is possible and
valued. This model of study is, according to Salo W. Baron, “the
matrix of all Jewish intellectual pursuits” (371-372). Hasidism
arose as a rebellion against this hegemony, placing good deeds
and religious emotion over learning, but eventually, rabbinics
reasserted itself. Hasidism became Orthodox Judaism with a
new flavor: while it continued to require intense study of the
Talmud, it gained a new spiritual intensity. Baron quotes the
Hasidic mystic Besht, who said that “every man must devote all
his capabilities to the service of God, for all things are intended
to serve God. Under no circumstances of life must this service be
intermitted” (373). The study of the Talmud is the intellectual
expression of this directive, and any intellectual activities that
take up time that could be spent on scripture—such as
literature—are sinful. This is the culture of the intensely
religious people who, interestingly enough, produced Potok.
The conflict between two cores in his life is obvious.
Rather than viewing the conflict as an evil or undesirable
phenomenon, Potok puts it to work. A person who, like Potok,
finds himself drawn to both cores often experiences an explosion
of creativity: “An encounter with soaring alien ideas often sets us
soaring toward new ideas of our own; or we enter into a process
of selective affinity, finding in the alien thought system elements
with which we feel the need to fuse” (Urban 165). The person
caught between two contradictory cores becomes what Potok
calls a Zwischenmensch; that is, a between-person. The
Zwischenmensch must “cross the boundaries of his or her own
culture and embrace life-enhancing elements from alien worlds .
. . . To be a Zwischenmensch is to feel at home everywhere and
nowhere simultaneously” (Urban 166-167). Potok’s theory of
core-to-core culture confrontation allows him to simultaneously
draw inspiration from both the secular and religious traditions,
but as the sequence of his novels progresses, shades of gray
begin to manifest themselves in his writing. The earliest novel,
The Chosen, comes to a relatively simple and enthusiastic
conclusion, with Potok placing emphasis on the idea of the cores
of secular intellectual life and religious faith being separate
spheres and therefore not mutually exclusive. The later novels,
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however, especially the books centered around Asher Lev,
portray the issue as being perhaps not quite as simple as Potok
first thought. At first, the Zwischenmensch’s being at home
everywhere receives greater emphasis; later, Potok draws more
attention to his being at home nowhere. Co-existence is still
possible, but sacrifices must be made to compensate and
maintain balance. The idea that one may travel easily and
harmlessly between the secular and religious spheres if he will
but open his mind is replaced with the recognition that drawing
from one sphere irreversibly—and often negatively—affects the
other, even if doing so leads to a new, creative truth. Once this
negative effect is recognized the question of interaction becomes
even more difficult, for then one must ask whether the
confrontation between secular and religious modes is worth it.
Potok never denies that it is, but he becomes keenly aware of the
hardship experienced by an individual who wants to claim both.
The Chosen is Potok’s first novel and the beginning of
his lifelong treatment of cultural confrontation. It is evident that
even at this early stage Potok has given much thought to his pet
subject. In a 1999 interview with Laura Chavkin, he states,
The Chosen ... began with this problem: What
might happen if two young men at the core of
the Jewish tradition came into conflict, in an
American setting, with two elements of the
secular world, one Freud and the other secular
Zionism? (157)
At the core of Reuven’s and Danny’s lives is Jewish tradition,
which profoundly influences how both of them, even the more
liberally raised Reuven, view the world. This religious core
meets the secular core of Western intellectualism, and the
resulting reaction profoundly influences the coming-of-age of
both boys.
One important way in which Potok illustrates his views
about secular and religious modes in The Chosen is in his
depiction of the boys’ fathers and how each raises his son. Both
Reuven and Danny are raised primarily by their fathers:
Reuven’s mother is dead, and the tremendous presence of Reb
Saunders overshadows any influence Danny's demure mother
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might exercise upon her son. It is clear that Potok wants the
reader to see Reuven’s father Mr. Malter as the ideal Jewish
teacher and parent (Ribalow 13). Although the Hasids consider
Malter to be on the border of heresy (and, once Zionism becomes
an issue, past it), he is indeed a thoroughly religious man: he
teaches Talmud at yeshiva and never once implies that Jews
should forget their traditions in favor of worldly concerns.
However, he also recognizes the value of secular learning and
the importance of bringing secular methods of reading to the
Talmud. The reader sees an example of this when, as Reuven
approaches adulthood, he decides that he wants to become a
rabbi. This choice is acceptable to his father, but he had been
hoping for his son to be a university professor of mathematics:
“You would have been a fine university professor .... I would
have liked you to become a university professor. But I think you
have already decided” (Chosen 219). Malter accepts Reuven’s
choice to become a rabbi, but he nevertheless seems slightly
disappointed, and it is evident from this that, despite his
Orthodox Judaism, Malter considers secular intellectual pursuits
to be a desirable and worthwhile. This is Potok’s ideal Jewish
mindset, at least in this period. In Malter exists a nigh-perfect
balance of cultural cores.
Reb Saunders, Danny’s father, is almost the complete
opposite of Mr. Malter. Critic Samuel Bluefarb describes the
Reb as being “the archetypal, God-intoxicated Hassid” (405).
The Reb views anything other than the study of the Talmud as a
waste of time and considers any Jew who does not follow the
strict Hasid code to be suspect of heresy. At times, Reb
Saunders loses sight of the fact that all Jews, whether Orthodox
or Hasid, come from the same people and share the same
problems. The extreme example of this narrow-mindedness is
his reaction to Zionism, which he goes to great lengths to
discredit, even publishing fliers that call the Zionists “Jewish
goyim” (234). Zionism is a threat to the Reb and the other
Hasids because it is not an intrinsically religious movement:
Reuven describes the Reb’s stance as “No Jewish homeland
without the Torah at its center; therefore, no Jewish homeland
until the coming of the Messiah” (Potok 234). Zionism, though
Jewish, sought to establish the new Israeli state by means of
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politics, not faith. The Malters are able to embrace this
movement because they are balanced between the secular and the
religious, but Reb Saunders is not, so he has no choice but to go
against it all.
However, as Edward A. Abramson notes, the Reb is not
a totally negative character. Perhaps the strongest role the Reb
plays in proving Potok’s thesis is his reaction to Danny’s choice
at the end of the novel. Danny decides to reject his inherited role
as tzaddik and pursue a career in psychology. He is terrified of
telling his father, since he expects that the Reb will disown him.
To his (and possibly the reader’s) surprise, the Reb does not do
so. Rather, he admits the flaws in the methods he used to raise
Danny and says, “Let my Daniel become a psychologist. I have
no more fear now. All his life he will be a tzaddik. He will be a
tzaddik for the world. And the world needs a tzaddik” (Potok
280). Reb Saunders is the most traditionally religious character
in The Chosen; that he eventually comes to see the value of
Danny’s choice is magnificent testimony to Potok’s thesis.
While the characters of Mr. Malter and Reb Saunders are
important to The Chosen, the novel is itself focused on the
coming-of-age of the two boys. Their development is central to
Potok’s vision, for, as Zlotnick notes, Reuven and Danny mirror
Potok’s own journey (13). When considering Reuven and
Danny in light of this theme, the reader must be careful not to
see one as representing solely the appreciation of secular
learning and the other only religious fanaticism, as this violates
Potok’s belief that the ideal intellect draws from both cores.
Danny and Reuven can each appreciate both sides of the
(seeming) dichotomy, making them Zwischenmensch, equally at
home in either realm.
This state of Zwischenmensch-existence seems to be
Potok’s ideal in The Chosen. Critic Sam Bluefarb calls the boys
“symbolically two halves of a single (perhaps ideal? Jewish?)
personality” (404). While Reuven is not totally secular, and
Danny is not totally a religious fanatic, each boy leans more to
one side while retaining the other. The trick that illustrates
Potok’s point so well is that each tends toward a position that is
the opposite of what his upbringing would lead the reader to
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expect. Reuven, raised in a very intellectual environment, seeks
to become a rabbi, and Danny, raised in the spiritual fervor of
Hasidism, is determined to become a practicing psychologist.
The boys themselves recognize the irony of their choices in their
dialogue in the last part of the novel: “[Danny] shook his head.
‘I can’t get over your becoming a rabbi.’ [Reuven replied] ‘I
can’t get over your becoming a psychologist. And we looked at
each other in quiet wonder” (Chosen 260).
The most telling aspect of this development is how each
boy realizes the contribution of the opposing element to his
chosen emphasis. Reuven, as stated, wishes to become a rabbi.
This decision does not negate the passion for logic and
philosophy he has exhibited since early adolescence. During the
same conversation mentioned above, Danny expresses the view
that logic and theology do not traditionally go together; they are
like “David and Saul.” Reuven responds by saying, “They are.
But I might help them get better acquainted” (Chosen 260).
Danny has chosen to dedicate himself to the study of the psyche
rather than the Talmud, but he intends for his faith to inform his
practice of psychoanalysis. During Mr. Malter’s first stay in the
hospital, Reuven voices to Danny his doubt that the Talmud can
“live side by side” with Freud. Danny merely shrugs the
comment off, apparently unworried about it (Potok 196). Danny
instinctively sees that he can apply Freud’s methods to
psychology without abandoning his faith. A more explicit
instance occurs when Danny and Reuven are discussing how
Danny must soon give the news of his decision to Reb Saunders.
Reuven asks, “Are you going to remain an Orthodox Jew?” and
Danny replies, almost resentfully, “Whatever gave you the
notion that I had any intention of not remaining an Orthodox
Jew?” (Potok 267). Danny acknowledges that he must sacrifice
his earlocks if he practices clinical psychology, but he does not
believe that he must sacrifice his spirituality as well. Danny’s
ability to do hold the two practices together is explored further in
The Promise, where it receives a more discriminating
examination, but in The Chosen, Danny seems to be heading in
the right direction.
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An idea in The Chosen that is challenged in The Promise
and the Asher Lev novels is that of the simple, almost scientific
separation between the two cores of faith and secular criticism.
The best example of The Chosen’s presentation of a harmonious
relationship between the two spheres occurs when Reuven
receives a particularly difficult passage of the Talmud to
interpret for his college Hebrew scripture class. Reuven
eventually solves the contradiction by using a very unorthodox
method of textual emendation that involves actually changing the
reading of the passage in question in light of outside sources of
knowledge. Reuven believes that his work is valid; he also
knows that it is skirting on the edge of heresy by the standards of
the conservative institution which he attends. When pressed for
his solution in class, Reuven says that he cannot offer a solution
and instead provides his emended text. The rabbi gives him
credit for this maneuver, saying that some parts of the Talmud
are beyond anyone’s understanding, but after class, he takes
Reuven aside and asks him what he really thinks about the text.
Reuven admits his true opinion, and to his surprise, the rabbi
agrees, with a caveat: “I am myself not opposed to such a
method. But I must ask you never to use it in my class” (Chosen
250). Reuven submits to this stricture, endorsing the idea that
logic and theology might be used in complementary ways. He
sees and understands that his work is valid within an intellectual
sphere. He also sees that it does not belong in the yeshiva,
which is a place of pure faith. He does not deny either his
critical work or the spirituality of the Talmud classroom; rather,
he acknowledges that they are distinct spheres that can inform
each other, but should sometimes retain their separation. Here,
Potok says the spheres of the secular and the religious can coexist and complement each other without conflict and without
trespassing into each other’s provinces. While he certainly
retains the idea that both are valid, he eventually abandons the
idea that their union, even when productive, can be without
conflict, and in The Promise he delivers a classroom scene the
lesson of which directly contradicts this earlier one. Altogether,
The Chosen has a happy ending and a simple presentation of the
core-conflict problem. There are hints of complexity, and the
reader feels that perhaps Danny and Reuven will have to address
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their issues and beliefs in a more rigorous setting later in their
lives, but Potok has no problem keeping the core elements of
psychology, philosophy, Zionism, and Talmudic scholarship in
comfortable equilibrium.
Potok resumes the tale of Reuven and Danny a few years
later in The Promise. The two are now young men seeking to
find their places in the world, and with their adult status comes
even more pressing, tangled, and consequential problems.
Despite being a more complex and probing work than its
predecessor, The Promise has received relatively little in the way
of scholarly attention in comparison to the previous book.
Nevertheless, it is an important continuation of the themes Potok
began to explore in The Chosen, and furthermore, it is here that
shades of gray begin to creep into Potok’s vision, although the
overall message is still relatively hopeful.
In The Promise, Potok continues to defy the reader’s
expectations based on each character’s perceived stereotype.
The liberal-minded Reuven’s decision to pursue ordination as a
rabbi was unexpected in The Chosen, so it is perhaps appropriate
that in The Promise he is the one who finds himself caught in a
conflict between religion and secular-influenced critical
scholarship, while Danny, the Freudian, remains secure in his
balance between the poles. Reuven, seeking smicha, or
permission to minister as a rabbi, finds himself drawn into a
conflict between two theologians who represent two very
different ways of approaching the Jewish faith. On one side,
there is Rav Kalman, who is cocooned deep within the core of
Hasidism and who views as heresy any attempt to bring modern
methods of scholarship to its texts. To a large degree, Kalman’s
views are due to his survival of the Holocaust. Kalman’s
students in Europe died for their religion, and he views any effort
to bring a free critical approach (the Western approach) to the
Talmud as a derogation of the martyrs’ sacrifices. This view is
aptly expressed when he demands of Reuven, “When we went to
our deaths to sanctify the Name of God, we died for an idea?
How can such a thing be, Reuven? My students died for an
idea? You can pray to an idea? I do not understand it” (Potok
296). The concept of religion as an “idea” that is open to the
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critical method is indeed what so offends Kalman; he sees it as a
violation of the Jewish core. According to Kalman, any attempt
to update or clarify the meaning of scripture is dangerous
because it encourages a progressively risky and sinful attitude
toward the law. Kalman’s ideas are most thoroughly expressed
in the editorial he writes against Rav Malter’s new book:
If one accepted the possibility of changing the
text of the Talmud, then what might happen to
the laws that were based on these texts? . . . And
where would such a system of study end? . . .
How was one to regard the Master of the
Universe if one could simply go ahead and
rewrite the Bible? . . . The entire fabric of
tradition would come apart as a result of this
kind of method. It was a dangerous method, an
insidious method; it could destroy the very heart
of Yiddishkeit. And it was dangerous not only
to Jews but to all religion . . . . A method of this
kind made man superior to God because it made
the sacred texts subject to man’s tiny
understanding; what he did not understand, he
changed. A scholar who used such a method
was committing heresy.1 (235)
In other words, Kalman does not just see the limitations of
traditional scholarship, he values them. To Kalman, an
accusation of close-mindedness is closer to compliment than
insult; he would likely say that being close-minded is the only
appropriate way to protect our flawed reasons from the human
tendency to over-estimate one’s own understanding as compared
to God’s. Kalman is not opposed to the use of the intellect in
itself, as witnessed by the academic rigor which he demands
from his students, but he despises the idea, so valued in the
secular tradition, that the intellect must have freedom from
authority in its endeavors.
On the other side of the matter is Abraham Gordon.
Gordon, like Kalman, has been profoundly affected by the evil
1
Emphasis mine
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93
he has seen in the world, but unlike Kalman, who reacts by
embracing the core of his culture even tighter, Gordon changes
sides. Abramson describes Gordon’s position as “the elucidation
of a problem that affects many twentieth-century Jews and which
Reform Judaism in the nineteenth century faced as well; that is,
can Judaism be interpreted in such a way that Jews will desire to
continue an active attachment to it?” (41). Gordon still values
the Jewish faith for what it means to his people, but he no longer
sees any meaning in its God. The reader feels that Gordon’s
problem is not that he does not want to believe in a personal
God, but, rather, that he cannot. In response to Reuven’s
complaints about Kalman, Gordon says,
[Kalman] doesn’t understand my concept of
God. I don’t understand his. A God who
worries about every human being, every
creature. I find it an incomprehensible notion in
the face of what we know about the world and
about evil. A primitive concept. What do I do
with the truth, Reuven? Evolutionary theory and
astronomy and physics and biblical criticism and
archeology and anthropology—they present us
with truths. What do I do with the truth? I
cannot ignore the truth. So I try to make it serve
me. (Promise 298)
Gordon (as Kalman accuses him) does “not believe in the Master
of the Universe [but] still write[s] books asking Jews to remain
good Jews” (295). This is indeed the central problem of
Gordon’s intellectual work, and Reuven’s succinct answer to
Kalman—“He loves his people”—hints at Gordon’s motivation.
Reuven extracts his answer from what Gordon has told him
about his own intellectual development: he lost the faith, so to
speak, in college, but “the rituals—particularly prayer, kashruth,
the Shabbat, and the festivals—had intrinsic value for him; and
so he continued to observe the rituals while no long believing in
the theology” (279). The events of Germany sparked Gordon’s
desire to make the tradition into something “more than Sundayschool Bible stories” (280). In other words, Gordon wants the
Jewish faith to be a meaningful source of support to his people
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simply because it is theirs, even if there is no personal God
behind the ritual, and this involves opening up the faith to
criticism so as to understand why it is meaningful. Gordon
wants to crack open the orthodox Jewish core and transplant into
it a secular skeleton in order to keep in vital. He offends Kalman
because not only does he expose Judaism to secular methods, but
he also turns it into a secular system.
Predictably enough, given the moderation that Potok
displayed in The Chosen, the author does not fully endorse either
side of the conflict represented by the two rabbis. Abramson
writes that “here, as elsewhere, Potok rejects the extremes of
right or left” and that while Kalman’s way is “choking,”
Gordon’s is “freezing” (42). Reuven reflects this; to him,
adopting Kalman’s pattern means that “we become like dead
branches and last year’s leaves and what the hell good are we for
ourselves and the world in a mental ghetto?” (Promise 142). On
the other hand, while Reuven asks the same questions that
Gordon does, he does not like Gordon’s answers, since he retains
a belief in God (288). Reuven’s ultimate stance becomes evident
during the course of his oral examination for smicha. When
faced with a particularly difficult passage, Reuven decides to “go
all the way”: he emends the text not even on the basis of less
respected Talmudic texts but from an outside source altogether.
Reuven explains to the teachers giving the examination—
including Kalman—that “I was not trying to be disrespectful to
the Gemara but was only trying to better my understanding of
it.” When Kalman asks him if he would use this method while
teacher, Reuven, knowing that his answer could mean that his
smicha could be denied but also recognizing that he must be true
to himself, answers “Yes” (Potok 335). This is exactly the
opposite decision of the choice he made in The Chosen’s
classroom scene and indicates that Potok has realized, at least to
an extent, that there is no use in trying to avoid conflict if one is
striving to be a Zwischenmensch. Reuven’s willingness to risk
the fulfillment of his desire to be a part of the ministry in order to
protect his integrity is testimony to how strongly he is committed
to his attempt to balance his two cores. He values the Jewish
core but thinks that it must be open to the methods of the secular
core to be fully expressed and understood. Out of this union
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comes the creativity that Potok believes flows from cultural
confrontation. In this way, Reuven’s conclusion in The Promise
is very much like the ending of The Chosen.
The other main character of The Promise is, of course,
Danny Saunders. Interestingly enough, Danny’s role in the coreto-core confrontation of the novel is almost peripheral, as
compared to Reuven’s, at least. Despite Danny’s extremely
Orthodox upbringing, he seems to have adapted to the mindset of
professional psychological practice without much internal
conflict. Reuven acknowledges this and speculates that the
phenomenon is due to the extremity of Danny’s natal Orthodoxy.
During a hopeless moment, when balance seems impossible in
his own life, Reuven reflects,
I . . . felt suddenly drained and hollow with the .
. . awareness of how deep the separating chasm
really was and how impossible it seemed to
bridge it—unless you were a Danny Saunders
and were rooted deeply enough in one world to
enable you to be concerned only about the
people of the other and not about their ideas. I
was in between somewhere . . . . (257)
Reuven believes that Danny cannot even contemplate a life
outside Orthodoxy, so therefore he can feel no conflict that
threatens his frame of references, no matter how deeply into
psychology he progresses. This is not to say that Danny
experiences no conflict at all: his relationship with Rachel, his
less-conservative fiancée, necessitates some uncomfortable
adjustments for both of them, but nothing he experiences
threatens his faith. Danny remains the ostensibly perfect
Zwischenmensch. On the other hand, Reuven, by virtue of his
more open-minded upbringing, can feel this conflict, and
because of this, there is the possibility that he might be forced to
“take a stand and abandon one or the other [world] entirely”
(257). Danny would never even think to contemplate the
possibility. The reader might be tempted to see this
characteristic of Danny in a positive light and wonder whether
Reuven possessing the like would make his life easier, but Potok
does not seem to agree. This is a notable departure from The
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Chosen. Reuven expresses a certain level of frustration with
Danny’s mindset and implies that it could—not necessarily in
Danny’s himself but possibly others—lead to the mental ghetto
state he so dreads (142). In Reuven, one sees the first hints of
the homeless, rather than double-homed, Zwischenmensch.
One might wonder where Danny, if his problems were
resolved in The Chosen, fits into Potok’s scheme in The Promise.
Abramson notes that there is a minor element in the novel of
Danny wanting to prove his choice correct, but it is far from
being a predominant theme (47). Danny’s significance is his
role in the treatment of Michael, Abraham Gordon’s son, a
young man who is suffering from a mental illness that makes
him depressed and violent. Conventional treatment fails to help
Michael, so Danny obtains permission to do a graduate
experiment on the boy: he subjects him to a regimen of absolute
silence, an extreme version of the method Reb Saunders used to
raise Danny. Abramson notes that this makes for an interesting
opportunity for unity between religion and science (49), but the
treatment itself is not directly responsible for Michael’s
recovery. It does, however, encourage him to finally break down
and talk about his thoughts with someone—that someone being
Reuven, who connected with the boy early on in the novel.
Michael reveals to Reuven that the cause of his distress is that
the controversy and polemic surrounding his father’s conflict
with Orthodoxy has caused him to hate both religion and his
father, whom he loves while hating. Michael asks Reuven,
“How can you love a religion that makes people hate other
human beings?” and sobs: “I love my father. And I—and I—I
hate him!” (356). Michael’s guilt over the matter is the cause of
his mental illness. This particular subplot is where the reader
sees an element of unease in The Promise that was largely absent
in The Chosen. Reuven has no ready answer for Michael’s
questions about why religion causes people to hate one another.
Furthermore, Reuven comes to realize that, in a subtler and less
profound way than Michael, he has hated his own father in the
past for the difficulty Rav Malter’s liberalism has brought upon
the family (Potok 361). Here the reader sees that Potok
acknowledges that cultural confrontation can produce hardship
as well as creativity. He still thinks it is worth undertaking, but,
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as Reuven himself admits, “sometimes you have to hurt a person
you love” (352)—a caveat that receives much fuller expression
in the Asher Lev novels. Michael’s treatment is a gamble, and
gambling, Potok notes, is “fundamental” to The Promise
(Ribalow 15). There is no guarantee that the regimen of silence
will help Michael, and this uncertainty extends to every decision
in the novel, for as Gordon himself says, “Almost everything of
importance that a person does is a gamble, isn’t it? Every crucial
decision is a gamble” (233). The risk of failure is one that must
be taken, a tenet expressed in Rav Malter’s words: “We cannot
ignore the truth . . . that is the dilemma of our time, Reuven.”
The truth is that cores must contact if they are to remain vital;
the gamble is that creativity, not suffering, will result. Rav
Malter says “I do not know what the answer is” (312). In The
Promise, Potok still offers a possible answer, but he recognizes
the potential for things to go wrong and for the between-person
to end up with no home instead of two.
Chaim Potok continued to explore this tension
throughout his novelistic career, embodying it powerfully in the
title character of his two Asher Lev volumes, My Name is Asher
Lev (1972) and The Gift of Asher Lev (1990). Although
biographical details about Potok’s life remain relatively scarce,
one can deduce from what is known that he was himself a
Zwischenmensch, suspended between two cultural traditions that
both meant a great deal to him. His own coming to terms with
this conflict in his life runs deep through his fiction. When one
first meets Danny and Reuven, the message is a hopeful and
exciting one: the secular and the religious can co-exist and the
thinker can draw upon both to reach new and deeper
understanding of the world. As Potok ages, the novels also age
in a sense: they become more complex and sensitive to the
suffering, as well as the joy, caused by cultural confrontation.
The Promise is darker than The Chosen, and My Name is Asher
Lev is so troubling that it makes The Promise look happy in
comparison. This is not to say that Potok lost hope, for The Gift
of Asher Lev offers a means to make up for the suffering brought
by cultural conflict, but even here there is a sad note: Asher the
artist who cannot live in Brooklyn must give up his son to the
tutorship of the Ladover Rebbe to acheive balance. Potok never
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denies that the creativity that comes from cultural contact
between the traditions of secularism and religion is worthwhile
and necessary, but he does increasingly recognize the difficulties
involved. By the end of The Gift, no one can accuse Potok of not
seeing the negative implications inherent in his attempt to make
meaning of the confusion that is humankind’s intellectual life.
In Potok, the secular and the religious meet. His works channel
the resulting creativity and sadness.
Works Cited
Abramson, Edward A. Chaim Potok. Boston: Twayne
Publishers, 1986.
Barbour, Ian G. Issues in Religion and Science. Englewood
Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1966.
Baron, Salo W. “The Enduring Heritage.” Great Ages and
Ideas of the Jewish People. New York: The Modern
Library, 1956. 360-390.
Bluefarb, Sam. “The Head, the Heart, and the Conflict of
Generations.” College Language Association Journal
14 (1971): 402-409.
Chavkin, Laura. “A MELUS Interview: Chaim Potok.” MELUS
24.2 (1999): 147-157.
Kremer, S. Lillian. “Chaim Potok.” Dictionary of Literary
Biography (V 28). Ed. Daniel Walden. Detroit: Gale
Research Company, 1984. 233-243.
Potok, Chaim. The Chosen. New York: Ballantine Books, 1967.
-------. “Culture Confrontation in Urban America: A Writer’s
Beginnings.” Literature and the Urban Experience. Ed.
Michael C. Jaye. New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press, 1981. 161168.
-------. “The Culture Highways We Travel.” Religion and
Literature 19.2 (Summer 1987): 1-10.
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-------. The Gift of Asher Lev. New York: Fawcett Books, 1990.
-------. My Name is Asher Lev. New York: Fawcett Books,
1972.
-------. The Promise. New York: Ballantine Books, 1969.
Ribalow, Harold. “A Conversation with Chaim Potok.”
Conversations with Chaim Potok. Ed. Daniel Walden.
Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2001. 1-27.
Sutherland, Sam III. “Asher Lev’s Visions of His Mythic
Ancestor.” Artes Liberales 3.2 (1977): 51-54.
Zlotnick, Joan. “The Chosen Borough: Chaim Potok’s
Brooklyn.” Studies in Jewish American Literature 4
(1985): 13-18.
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Theological Reflections on Lying
Jonathan Redding

Sissela Bok defines a lie as “an intentionally deceptive
message in the form of a statement” (Bok 15). Paul J. Griffiths
takes the definition of lying one step further by saying, “There is
an internal fact and an external fact. The internal is what’s in the
mind and the external is what’s said or communicated in some
other way” (Griffiths 27). Griffiths’ claim amounts to saying
that within every person are two different types of information:
what is being thought and what is being said. For Griffiths, lying
occurs when “the two are intentionally separated” (Griffiths 27).
This separation of internal and external fact is known as
duplicity. The duplicity of fact itself is not a lie. Augustine
viewed God as forbidding all lies in any shape or form—no
exceptions (Bok 34). God does not forbid duplicity. The act of
intentionally separating what one knows to be true from what
one knows to be a false and presenting the falsehood as truth is a
lie (Griffiths 27). For example, if a man named Steve knows he
has five dollars in his pocket and then tells someone that he has
no money on him, Steve is separating what is true and what is
false and presenting the false information as truth. One can
separate a truthful idea into as many false ideas as he or she
wants but until he or she makes the intentional effort to state a
false idea, no lie has occurred.
Lying occurs when the reason for the separation and
duplicity is deception (Griffiths 27). However, not every lie is
meant to deceive. Lying with the intent to deceive is not the
only reason people may lie (Griffiths 30). Augustine defines
lying as “deliberately duplicitous and insincere speech that
deliberately contradicts what its speaker takes to be true”
(Griffiths 31). Augustine’s definition of lying leaves no room
for justifiable spoken falsehood (Bok 33). Augustine is saying
any kind of deliberate contradiction of truth is a lie. People may
lie to make themselves look better to others, or as Augustine
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stated: “liars may lie because they want to please their
interlocutors, not because they want to deceive them” (Griffiths
30).
Just as everyone has lied to deceive, everyone has lied to
tell someone else what he or she has wanted to hear. The
infamous question asked by wives or girlfriends to husbands or
boyfriends, “Does this dress make me look fat?” is often
followed by a lie. People lie in situations such as those posed by
the dress question to keep themselves from getting into
unnecessary arguments. Even though the intentions may not be
to harm and deceive, the intentionally false responses to
questions are still lies.
Augustine goes on to argue there exists a certain
“eightfold distinction, beginning with lies uttered in the teaching
of religion, the worst ones of all, and ending with lies which
harm no one and yet save someone from physical defilement”
(Bok 33). If someone were to deliberately manipulate words
from the Bible to take advantage of others, he or she has lied
while teaching religion. In order from worst type of lying to
least sinful lying, Augustine’s eight types of lying are the
following: lies in religious teaching, lies that harm others and
help no one, lies that harm others and help someone, lies told for
the pleasure of lying, lies told to please others and avoid
unnecessary confrontations, lies that harm no one and help
someone, lies that harm no one and save someone’s life, and lies
that harm no one and save someone’s purity (Bok 33).
Augustine’s eightfold hierarchy states there are some
lies that are worse than other lies. Augustine does not, however,
say these lesser lies are not sins. The smallest and least harmful
lie that will benefit more individuals than the lie will hurt is still
a sin. Every type of lying is a sin in Augustine’s eyes because of
the intentional act of saying something untrue, which goes
against “the God-given purposes of human speech” (Bok 33).
The question for Augustine is not whether or not the lie is a sin
but rather whether a particular type of lie is pardonable.
Augustine’s definition of lying has certain exclusions.
According to Augustine, “nonverbal actions cannot be lies” and
“ silence—the refusal to speak—is also excluded” (Griffiths 33).
Augustine believed the God given purpose of speech is to speak
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the truth, and going against the purpose of God is a sin (Bok 34).
Augustine does not directly say one cannot lie nonverbally; in
fact, he avoids the subject. Even though one can choose to
misinterpret or give a nonverbal sign or gesture in a deceitful
way, Augustine’s definition never branches out away from
concerns with speech (Griffiths 33). Excluded from Augustine’s
list of lies are errors and jokes. In the case of an error, if an
individual says something and thinks what he or she says to be
true, then he or she is not duplicating internal and external fact
(Griffiths 33). The motivation behind a proper joke is not to
deceive or mislead; therefore a joke is not duplicitous. Though a
joke may say something seemingly untrue or misleading, a joke
is not a lie because “the joker takes herself to be joking rather
than making a claim that she takes to be false” (Griffiths 34).
Though Augustine was a theologian, his definition of lying does
a great deal for the philosophy of lying. Augustine took up the
task of defining what a lie actually is and by doing this he
indirectly challenges the boundaries set up by skepticism
concerning truth.
St. Thomas Aquinas was a theologian and philosopher
whose ideas and writings “set a pattern still followed by Catholic
theologians” (Bok 34). To say Aquinas borrowed from
Augustine’s writings and thoughts is an understatement. The
best way to describe the relationship between the works of
Aquinas and Augustine is to say Aquinas used Augustine’s work
as a sort of springboard. Aquinas would take a thought from
Augustine, discuss the thought, and then add his own
commentary.
Aquinas approaches the subject of lying by expanding
and tweaking Augustine’s thoughts on lying. The Summa
Theologica contains Aquinas’s arguments on subjects ranging
from whether or not God exists to how to live a morally just life.
In the Summa Theologica Aquinas addresses the subject of lying
in three ways. He defines lying, discusses the different types of
lying, and discusses what lying in accordance with sin means.
Augustine defined lying as “deliberately duplicitous
speech, insincere speech that deliberately contradicts what its
speaker takes to be true” (Griffiths 31). Aquinas begins his
definition of lying in Summa Theologica by turning over
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Augustine’s words. Aquinas sets up the Summa Theologica like
a series of arguments and counter-arguments. The three
objections Aquinas refutes in order to define lying are the
following: lying does not always oppose truth, lying applies only
to words, and lying opposes benevolence or justice rather than
truth (Aquinas 1658). Aquinas makes these first objections by
construing writings from Augustine in order to show what
Aquinas believes to be the true intentions of Augustine.
Aquinas responds to the first objection of “lying not always
opposing truth” by stating that lying is “directly and formally
opposed to the virtue of truth” (Aquinas 1658). Aquinas refutes
the second objection of “lying applies only to words” by
claiming that Augustine meant for use of the word “words” to
denote “every kind of sign,” not just literal spoken words
(Aquinas 1658). Aquinas sided with Augustine by affirming that
a falsehood or deception is a lie, but Aquinas believed a
falsehood was still a lie even if the falsehood goes unspoken
(Bok 34). Aquinas seems to have thought that Augustine’s
definition created a loophole for one who wanted to deceive, and
Aquinas moves to close it.
Aquinas refutes the third objection of lying which “opposes
benevolence or justice rather than truth” by saying a “perfect” lie
may be a deception of truth despite the fact that not all lies are
primarily intended to deceive (Aquinas 1658). Even though a lie
may be aimed against justice rather than truth, the lie is still
going against what Aquinas considers to be good because
Aquinas accepts Augustine’s idea of God intending humanity to
live for truth. Since God intends for humans to live for truth,
going against what is true is a sin (Bok 34). Aquinas seems to
argue with himself in order to define lying, but his intention is
clear: Augustine’s works could be misconstrued and Aquinas is
there to clear up the confusion. For Aquinas, lying is taking
deliberate action to say or commit any kind of falsehood against
truth. Truth for Aquinas is everything that is good (Aquinas
1658).
Aquinas continues the discussion of types of lies by
considering objections to Augustine’s statements about the
hierarchy of lies. Aquinas breaks down lying into three different
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categories, using Augustine’s works for support. The first
division is “with respect to their nature as lies” (Aquinas 1659).
Aquinas continues, “according to Augustine lies are of two
kinds...the lie which goes beyond the truth…’boasting’ and the
lie which stops short of the truth…’irony’ (Augustine 1659). For
Aquinas and Augustine, boasting is considered lying because
boasting is using overblown language and exaggeration to falsely
glorify someone or something. Irony is considered a lie because
irony is using words to convey a meaning opposite to the actual
meaning.
The second way lies may be divided is “with respect to
their nature as sins” (Aquinas 1659). Aquinas believes all lies
are sins and the categories are similar to Augustine’s hierarchy
of lies in that Aquinas puts lies into categories that show the
level of their sinfulness. Some lies are harsher and more sinful
than others for both Aquinas and Augustine. Aquinas would
probably agree that lying to cover up a murder is a much more
sinful lie than a man telling his wife she does not look fat in a
dress even though her figure is much too large for the dress.
Aquinas argues the three types of lies are officious,
jocose, and mischievous lies. For Aquinas, an individual must
look at the original intention and outcome of a lie in order to
determine into which category it falls. A mischievous lie is lying
with the intent to injure, harm, or hinder another person.
Obviously stealing, hurting, or spreading false gossip in order to
degrade someone is a mischievous lie. Also take for example a
young boy that lies by cheating on a test. The boy has still
committed a mischievous lie because he has harmed himself and
potentially his classmates. Even though the intention of the boy
was to get a better grade, the outcome could harm his classmates
if the teacher grades on a curve because the boy’s test causes the
curve to make his classmates’ grades lower.
An officious lie is intended to help another person or
persons. Take the example of Jewish sympathizers in Nazi
Germany. Aquinas’ definition of an officious lie allows for a
moral argument on behalf of a family who offers refuge to a
Jewish family yet lies to the local police about their knowledge
concerning the whereabouts of Jews. In this case, the lie is not
harming anyone. The lie to project to Jews is still a lie, but the
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lie does not bring immediate harm to anyone, unless the police
were to find out the sympathizers were housing Jews. Harm
would come from this discovery, but the lie would still be
considered officious because the original intention was for good.
Aquinas would argue hiding Jews from Nazis is a sin. However,
the sin coming from lying to Nazis about hiding Jews is not as
bad a sin as lying to deliberately hurt another person while
helping no one.
A jocose lie is the lightest and least sinful type of lying
for Aquinas because a jocose lie is a lie intended to please or
jest. Aquinas would agree that deceiving someone in order to
tell a simple knock-knock joke is not intended to bring harm.
But, joke or not, Aquinas does argue a jocose lie is still a sin
because the jocose lie tells something false in place of truth.
Though Aquinas gives three types of lies, only mischievous lies
constitute mortal sin (Bok 34). For Aquinas, a mortal sin is
“contrary to charity whereby the soul lives in union with God”
(Aquinas 1662). The dictionary defines mortal sin as “a willfully
committed, serious transgression against the law of God,
depriving the soul of divine grace and threatening a person’s
salvation.” Aquinas uses five objections in order to determine
what type of lying is mortal sin.
The first objection quotes a verse from the Psalm 5:7,
which says: “Thou hatest all the workers of iniquity: thou wilt
destroy all that speak a lie. The bloody and the deceitful man the
Lord will abhor.” The first objection continues by saying any lie
is a mortal sin because the scripture passage from Psalms does
not specify what kind of lie causes destruction (Aquinas 1662).
All that mattered in Psalm 5 was the fact that a lie occurred,
which means all that constitutes a lie being a sin for Aquinas is
merely the act of lying. Aquinas’ response to the first objection
is simple: the passage is speaking of a mischievous lie. Aquinas
would argue had any other lie been committed, no destruction
would have been brought down.
The second objection states any lie that breaks one of the
Ten Commandments, or is “against a precept of the Decalogue”,
is a mortal sin (Aquinas 1661). For Aquinas, a lie that does
break a Commandment against God or against a neighbor is a
mortal sin. The point Aquinas makes in refuting the second
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objection is that not all lies break a commandment against God
or a neighbor (Aquinas 1661). A jocose lie told at a party in jest
or a lie told to appease an angry friend does not break a
commandment; therefore all lies are not mortal sins.
The third objection is based on a statement of Augustine
that says a person who lies is “guilty of iniquity” (Aquinas
1661). This objection is saying a forgivable sin does not cause
someone to be guilty of iniquity, therefore “no lie is a venial sin”
(Aquinas 1661). A venial sin is a sin that does not threaten one’s
salvation. Aquinas responds to what he considers to be a
misconstrual of Augustine’s words by saying a forgivable sin
can be called iniquity in a broad sense, but to say no lie is a
venial sin is a bit extreme. Since a forgivable sin is still a
deviation from what is good, Augustine is speaking in the sense
of every sin being a form of iniquity (Aquinas 1661). Just
because a lie is a sin by nature does not mean it is a mortal sin,
or a sin threatening one’s salvation.
The fourth objection argues that even though some lies
may be beneficial to a person here on earth, his or her eternal
reward is lost because of the lie. Aquinas argues the
outrageousness of such a statement by saying the outcomes of
actions on earth do not always coincide with the outcomes of
eternity (Aquinas 1662). Aquinas’ argument against all lies
causing a person to lose his or her salvation is based on
situations such as the Jews hidden from Nazis or a man lying
about the appearance of his wife to avoid a fight. Aquinas’
thoughts on lying show he does not want humanity to wonder if
a certain action that could benefit a great number of people is
going to affect someone’s salvation because the action may be
considered a lie.
The fifth and final objection argues acting against a
precept is a mortal sin. Aquinas responds to this final objection
by stating if a person is in a position to safeguard specific
information about God and breaks the binding precept, a mortal
lie has indeed occurred (Aquinas 1662). Aquinas does not deny
lying about matters one is sworn by God to protect is a mortal
lie. Aquinas does argue that if a person sworn by precept to
protect information lies about something pertaining to matters
outside of the percept no mortal lie has occurred.
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What I have reviewed so far from Augustine and
Aquinas amounts to philosophical analysis. But how are these
philosophers able to take their arguments on the nature of lying
and apply them to theology? What relevance do their arguments
have for the layperson trying to establish a firm understanding of
how lying works in accordance with his or her faith? In order
for one to understand Augustine’s and Aquinas’s philosophies of
lying from a Christian viewpoint, one must first discuss what
Christians generally consider to be lying.
The first place to look when trying to discern the
Christian understanding of lying is the Ten Commandments.
Many Christians and Jews alike consider the Ten
Commandments to be the eternal guide to living a life pleasing
in God’s sight. The Eighth Commandment, as found in
Deuteronomy 5:20, states “You shall not bear false witness
against your neighbor.” This commandant is often taken to
mean not to commit perjury in a court of law, but The Catechism
of the Catholic Church goes into great detail concerning the
eighth commandment: “The Old Testament attests that God is
the source of all truth. His Word is truth. His Law is truth. His
‘faithfulness endures to all generations (Psalms 119:90). Since
God is True, the members of God’s people are called to live in
the truth” (591). According to John 1:14, Christ is the physical
embodiment of God on earth. Since God is Truth, God is unable
to lie which means Jesus was unable to lie and was pure truth on
earth. According to 1 John 3:4, whoever “does not obey God’s
commandments is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not
exist.” Jesus Christ came as the light of the world and literally is
the Truth (Catechism 591). Christians are called to live a life
exemplified by Christ, which means Christians are to strive for
truth every day.
For Christians, anyone choosing to act against truth is
going against God and deliberately sinning. In light of
Augustine and Aquinas’ thoughts on lying, an obvious hurdle for
Christian Biblical thoughts on lying comes up: Augustine and
Aquinas both believe some lies are not as harsh as others. Take
for example the difference between someone lying to cover up a
murder and a family lying about hiding Jews in Nazi Germany.
Looking only at Christian Biblical ideas of lying, one could say
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the family hiding the Jews was committing a sin just as grievous
as that of the murderer covering up a murder.
Even though the Bible seems to designate all lies as sins,
characters throughout the Bible appear to be rewarded for lying
on numerous occasions. Exodus 1:15–20 tells of Hebrew
Midwives lying to the Pharaoh of Egypt and being rewarded by
God for lying. In Genesis 12:10-19, God punishes the Egyptians
because Abraham instructed Sarai to lie for Abraham’s
protection. These examples are two of the many instances when
people are apparently rewarded for lying, which goes directly
against what the eighth commandment and other scriptures say.
For example, Proverbs 6:16-19 and Psalms 5:6 both say God
“hates a lying tongue.” Isaiah 28:15 forbids men to take refuge
or depend on lies.
The Bible shows evidence to support all lies being sins.
However, a person can be forgiven for lying just as for any other
sin. Biblical support for forgiveness can be found in numerous
places throughout the text, such as Colossians 3:13, which gives
instructions for Christians to forgive just as God has forgiven
them or Ephesians 4:32, which says, “Be kind and
compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in
Christ God forgave you." A lie may be a sin, but according to
the Bible the sin is not a permanent mark on one’s soul.
Augustine maintained, “God forbade all lies and liars
therefore endanger their immortal souls,” but not all lies are
equally sinful (Bok 34). For Augustine, the worst kinds of lies
are lies spoken while teaching religion while the least sinful lies
are intended to save someone from physical harm. Augustine
puts special emphasis on lies pertaining to religion, which shows
his strong favor towards the teachings of the Bible.
Augustine’s theology on lying pertains to spoken lies.
Augustine would argue the deception committed by Sarai on
behalf of Abraham in Genesis was in fact not a lie (Griffiths 34).
Augustine would argue Abraham’s “silence about the fact that
the woman is also his wife is not a lie…because it is not a verbal
act, and therefore not an act capable of being a lie” (Griffiths
34). Augustine would use his hierarchy of lies to explain why
some lies seem to be rewarded by God while others result in
punishment.
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Augustine wrote his arguments about lying because
Christians were having difficulty with the Biblical examples of
lying (Bok 34). Thus his work has a direct theological purpose,
and he sets out to take on the most problematic Biblical
passages. For example, Augustine would argue Rahab lying to
the King of Jericho’s men in Joshua 2 about the whereabouts of
spies she has deliberately hidden is indeed a sin. Even though
Rahab was lying to project men doing work on behalf of God,
what she is doing is still a sin in the Augustinian view. The
Rahab situation presents an obvious paradox. The men were
sent into the city because the Israelites needed an effective
strategy on how to take down Jericho. The Israelites do not seek
to take down Jericho for personal reasons but rather because God
has given Jericho to the Israelites. According to Joshua 1, God
has extended God’s blessing on the raid of Jericho. For the
invasion of Jericho to go as smoothly, the spies sent in by Joshua
must return safely. For this reason, Rahab had no choice but to
lie about the spies’ whereabouts. The question arising from the
Rahab scenario is how can this lie by Rahab be a sin if she seems
to be rewarded by God for her actions? Rahab is lying to protect
men sent on behalf of God. Augustine argues nonetheless that
Rahab lied because her “spoken words contradict what she takes
herself to think” (Griffiths 31). Augustine would argue what
Rahab did was a lie, but the lie was not severe because she was
deceiving with the intent to help someone.
Even though Aquinas agreed with Augustine and
considered all lies to be sins, Aquinas would disagree with the
supposed biblical interpretation of all lies being equal sins.
Aquinas responds directly to the question of whether all lies are
equal sins by saying a “lesser evil should be chosen to avoid a
greater evil” (Aquinas 76). Returning the question about hiding
Jews in Nazi Germany, Aquinas would obviously agree hiding
Jews in order to protect them from the atrocities of Nazi
Germany is not as severe as lying to cover up a murder.
However, Aquinas would argue, “all lies are sins, but officious
and jocose lies are less serious” (Bok 34). Aquinas would agree
with Augustine’s view about Rahab’s act of lying to protect the
spies being a sin. Aquinas would consider the lie pertaining to
the Jews and Nazis to be an officious or helpful lie because the
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intent of the lie was for good. With the Rahab example in mind,
one could surmise Aquinas would believe the Jewish
sympathizers to be committing a sin.
Aquinas would have more than likely have agreed with
Augustine that the lies told by the midwives of Exodus and
Sarai’s lie on behalf of Abraham were officious, because the
intent of those lies was not to just deceive, but to deceive in
order to help the greater good (Bok 78). Aquinas would also
agree that these women were not rewarded for the lies told but
received their reward for their fear of God.
Aquinas addresses the severity of sins by taking
Augustine’s hierarchy of lies one step further through the
distinction between mortal and venial sins. A mortal sin
“opposes love…and separates the soul from God” (Griffiths
179). The consequence of a mortal sin is death and ruin for the
soul. A mortal sin is only forgivable if one repents of it, which
means mortal sin threatens the salvation of one’s soul. With
Aquinas’ definition of mortal sin in mind, one could say
Aquinas’ entire argument and discussion about mortal sin is
from a theological perspective. The sins of the Egyptian
midwives are not mortal sins because their “aim or goal is not
contrary to love” (Griffiths 180). Aquinas goes against
Augustine’s view of lying by going so far as to say what the
midwives did merited some kind of temporal reward. Despite
this small difference, Aquinas’s thought has much in common
with that of Augustine, whom he takes as his model for
discussing this matter. Perhaps the point upon which they agree
most strongly is the conviction that the Bible should be the
guiding authority for Christian reflection.
Augustine and Aquinas rely upon Scripture to a degree
that puts them at odds with some contemporary theologians. In
contrast to Aquinas and Augustine’s notion that revelation stems
predominantly from the Bible, modern theology typically
considers God’s revelation to be constant and coming from many
different avenues in addition to the Bible (Migliore 25).
Aquinas and Augustine work out their theologies of lying from
the assumption that the Bible is the only form of God’s
revelation on Earth. However, Aquinas also seems to contradict
his own justification for his account of lying when he says, “No
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created intellect can understand God wholly” (Migliore 26).
Aquinas’s arguments seem to assume that he knows how God
feels about lying. Yet his quote seems to suggest that people
cannot fully understand God. If people cannot fully understand
God, how can Aquinas claim to know what constitutes a mortal
sin as opposed to a less harmful sin? Aquinas and Augustine
both wrote their theologies in a time when questioning the
authority of the Bible was considered to be sinful. Augustine’s
and Aquinas’ theologies provide an in-depth look about how the
theologians personally feel about lying, but one could argue that
their theologies do little to give satisfactory answers to modern
theological issues.
The issue of when is lying permissible has been argued
by prominent theologians and philosophers dating back to
Augustine. Lying will continue to be debated until the end of all
existence because there is no one final way to resolve its moral
status. Humanity must continue to question what it means to lie
and when lying should take precedence over truth. The search
for answers will go on because just as the Jews needed
protection from the Nazis, life or salvation threatening dilemmas
will arise as long as human history continues. As long as history
poses dilemmas, theology will have a role in responding to them.
Works Cited
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. Vol. 3. Translated by
father of the English Dominican Province. Maryland:
Christian Classics, 1981.
Bok, Sissela. Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life.
New York: Vintage Books, 1999.
Catechism of the Catholic Church. New Jersey: Paulist Press,
1994.
Frankfurt, Harry G. On Bullshit. Princeton and Oxford:
Princeton University Press, 2005.
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Griffiths, Paul J. Lying: An Augustinian Theology of Duplicity.
Michigan: Brazos Press, 2004
Jones, W.T. The Classical Mind: A History of Western
Philosophy, 2nd Edition. New York: Harcourt Brace
Janovich, 1969.
Migliore, Daniel L. Faith Seeking Understand: An Introduction
to Christian Theology. Michigan: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 2004.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
113
Michael Antonucci
Outracing History: Auto Racing Facts and
Myths in Charlotte, North Carolina 1

I. Introduction
In the mind of a race fan, the image is clear. A car
screams through a corner, kicking up dust as it goes. In hot
pursuit is a police car trying to catch it. The first car is carrying
a trunk full of moonshine and the cops want to arrest the driver.
Suddenly, the first car slams on the brakes and whips the car
around so it is facing the way it came. The cop is thrown by the
sudden move and spins out. The moonshine carrier hits the gas
and speeds away, avoiding arrest one more time.
The above story is famous in the hearts of NASCAR
fans. NASCAR, or the National Association of Stock Car Auto
Racing, began as a regional attraction and evolved into a national
sports powerhouse. Its popularity has allowed for the formation
of the NASCAR Hall of Fame to be established and built, in
much the same vein as the Football Hall of Fame in Canton,
Ohio, and the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New
York. The location of NASCAR’s Hall is in Charlotte, North
Carolina. To win this honor, the city used a slogan that proved
to be extremely popular with both fans and NASCAR officials:
1
Thanks to Dr. Robert Billinger, Katlyn Brahmer, Sidney Canada, and
Katie Case for motivation and putting up with my moods. Thanks to
Tom Cole and Jane Johnson of the Robinson-Spangler Room at the
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library for help in locating useful news articles
and books during the research of this paper.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
114
“Racing was built here. Racing belongs here.”2 The idea behind
such a slogan was that many race teams are located in North
Carolina and many believe that the origins of stock car racing
can be traced to the moonshine runners being chased on the back
country roads of North Carolina. But is this really the way
NASCAR developed? In order for the slogan to be accurate, it
would have to be absolutely true that Charlotte was the place
where racing was “built.” Ohio and North Carolina have long
argued over which state was “First in Flight,” due to the fact that
the Wright Brothers were born in Ohio and drew up their plans
there before testing their airplane designs in North Carolina. In a
similar vein, one could ask, was racing truly built in Charlotte?
Does NASCAR really owe its existence to activities that
happened in or around Charlotte, North Carolina? Other cities,
such as Atlanta, Georgia, had numerous connections to the early
days of NASCAR and the drivers who inhabited the sport. And
if Charlotte’s claim to be “Racing’s Builder” is not true, how did
such an idea become so widespread and well known? The
NASCAR Hall of Fame is going to be located in Charlotte; that
fact will not change. But did Charlotte win that honor on a
myth? Should the Hall have gone to Atlanta, also a city rich in
racing and moonshiner history, or to Richmond, site of a famous
track and the former capital of the Confederate States of
America, a popular symbol for many NASCAR fans? Perhaps
Daytona, Florida, home of NASCAR’s headquarters and
Daytona Super Speedway, one of the most famous tracks in all
of motorsports, is the proper home and building place of racing.
Answering these questions will not change NASCAR’s recent
decision, but the exercise will shine the light of truth on what has
long been taken for granted.
Most contemporary writers seem to accept as fact the
myth of the Moonshiners building the early days of racing and
do not even consider whether it is the truth or not. Newspaper
2
Chris DiCicco, “NASCAR Hall of Fame”,
http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/40634/recreation_and_spo
rts/nascar_hall_of_fame.html (accessed 3/23/09)
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
115
writers like David Poole, a writer for The Charlotte Observer
and one of the most respected NASCAR historians to be found,
rarely discusses NASCAR’s origins without saying how much
the moonshiners did for the sport. Sometimes, his discussion of
the moonshiners and their activities seems to border on hero
worship. He continually finds new ways to emphasize the role
of moonshiners in racing, mentioning, for example, the arrest of
a former NASCAR crew chief for making non-tax paid liquor, a
fancy way of saying moonshine.3 Outside of the newspapers that
cover racing, there is not much in the way of scholarly research
done on its history. Certain writers have attempted to discuss its
history and its origins, but those always seem to deal more with
the business aspect of racing, and not business as in the
production and distribution of alcohol. Most actual information
about the history of NASCAR has been restricted to
encyclopedias, few of which are aimed at a scholarly audience.4
Furthermore, newspaper articles, such as those by David Poole,
rarely back up what they claim with historical citations. In
general, it is fair to say that scholars do not seem to be concerned
with NASCAR’s history, or if they are, they have long since
3
David Poole, “Inside Motorsports”, The Charlotte Observer, March 5,
2009. 3C
4
These encyclopedias usually are aimed at young children and the
average fan. While good general information can be found in some of
them, it is difficult to say how reliable each of them is. The NASCAR
Chronicle by Greg Fielden is a prime example of this. While it features
numerous pictures and short biographies for many of the drivers that
are mentioned at different points in the chronology, the author admits
that his stat calculations do not always match the official stats that
NASCAR lists on its website. He instead states that his numbers are his
own research and his best guesses as to each, passing this off as being
“the best efforts of one of racing’s most respected historians.” (Greg
Fielden, NASCAR Chronicle, (Lincolnwood, Illinois: Publications
International) Dedication page))
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
116
accepted certain assumptions as the truth without any aim at
debunking what could be myths.5
Since the NASCAR Hall of Fame will be located in
Charlotte, the history of the organization and the sport will now
be important to both the Hall and the city. It has been proposed
that the Hall have at least one exhibit that concerns itself with the
moonshiners and their contributions. But how much of
NASCAR’s success was due to the moonshiners? And why give
so much credit to Charlotte? It could be said that NASCAR
simply had strong leadership that allowed it to grow into a
successful business venture. In any case, racing was an
important part of the entire Southern region.
NASCAR racing is still considered to be a Southern
sport and many of the best and most successful drivers in it were
born south of the Mason-Dixon Line. But NASCAR and its
history have grown more important as it spreads throughout the
5
Most of the books that are produced for the public do not deal with
history in the “in-depth” sense. Frequently, the books will concern
themselves with exterior ideas, such as The Racetracks Book by Mark
McCarter (St. Louis, Mo: The Sporting News, 2003) and Silent
Speedways of the Carolinas by Perry Allen Wood (Jefferson, NC:
McFarland & Company, 2007) do not discuss history except when that
history specifically deals with a race track that is discussed. Other
books, such as Men and Speed: A Wild Ride Through NASCAR’s
Breakout Season by G. Wayne Miller, does not discuss history but
instead discuss modern occurrences amongst race teams. There are a
few books that have general historical value, such as Driving with the
Devil: Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels, and the Birth of NASCAR
by Neal Thompson (New York: Crown Publishers, 2006) and The
Wildest Ride by Joe Menzer (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001).
Photograph collections such as those found in Auto Racing in Charlotte
and the Carolina Piedmont by Marc Singer and Ryan Sumner
(Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2003) and at the RobinsonSpangler Room at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library show different
snapshots in NASCAR history and a collection is in development at the
University of North Carolina-Charlotte campus that supposedly will
feature different mementos from different points in NASCAR and
North Carolina racing history. Furthermore, the NASCAR Hall of
Fame itself will feature an extensive museum of photographs and
exhibits, such as one of the cars driven by driver Junior Johnson.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
117
nation and even the world. NASCAR races are given coverage
on major networks and highlights are shown on ESPN. Foreignborn drivers, who traditionally have raced in the European-based
Formula One racing series, have begun to appear in NASCAR
races and have caused people outside of the United States to
follow the races that these new drivers participate in. NASCAR
has even held races outside of the United States—in Japan and
Mexico, for example. If NASCAR racing joins the NFL, NBA,
and Major League Baseball as profitable sports brands outside of
the United States, more people could end up coming to the
NASCAR Hall of Fame, just as many now visit Major League
Baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, or the Pro
Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. If they were to come, it
would be unfair of the Hall to present the visitors with false
information. And telling the visitors that “Racing was built
here” in Charlotte when it is not true is starting things off on the
wrong foot.
This paper will discuss the two myths mentioned above:
the “Racing was built here” myth and the myth of the
moonshiners as the people who made that building possible. It
will prove that while Charlotte and the Moonshiners did in fact
play a large role in the successful establishment of American
auto racing, they were just two of the components that created a
successful business and source of entertainment for America and
the world.
II. “Racing was Built Here, Racing Belongs Here”
To understand the concept of “Racing was built here,”
the term racing must first be defined. To simply use the word
without qualifying it possibly implies that all of organized racing
was built in the Charlotte region of North Carolina. In this case,
it is safe to assume that the city means that organized
motorsports is the racing in question. However, there was
organized auto racing long before NASCAR or stock car racing
ever became more than a group of people chasing each other in a
circle. The Indianapolis 500, held in Indianapolis, Indiana, has
been held since 1911. Even today, the Indianapolis Motor
Speedway is the largest stadium in the world, able to seat
250,000 and host many more spectators in the infield and
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
118
elsewhere.6 The 24 Hours of Le Mans has been held every year
in Le Mans, Sarthe, France since 1923. Even in the years that
NASCAR existed, it has had competitors for the distinction of
most important organized racing series, as the Formula One
racing series has been holding events since 1947 and first
awarded a championship in 1950.
So, although Charlotte’s attitude towards its racing
heritage could be explained by saying that the slowness of
communication in the early half of the twentieth century kept the
majority of Americans ignorant about racing in the rest of the
world, Charlotte was not the first to have large, world famous
races. Therefore, to make the claim of American racing being
built in Charlotte true, other options and definitions of the term
must be explored. In October 1900, a Charlottean by the name
of Osmond Barringer became the first Southerner to own a car.
He owned two steam driven Locomobiles7 that had been
delivered to him from Bridgeport, Connecticut.8 The “cars”
looked more like horse drawn carriages than they did what
people in the modern day would term an automobile, and they
certainly looked nothing like what NASCAR uses in its races.
Still, Barringer’s admirers could claim that he introduced the car
to the Southern population making it more likely others would
buy them. And if anything draws human beings together, it is
6
http://www.worldstadiums.com/stadium_menu/stadium_list/100000.sh
tml
7
The Locomobile Company of America was founded in 1899 (four
years before Ford Motor Co.) and continued to produce automobiles
until 1922, when the company was bought out. Some of their later cars
looked very similar to the car piece used in the board game Monopoly.
While the company did gain attraction for its unique cars and (at the
time) advanced technology, its products gained a reputation for
unreliability and difficulty in starting. The poet Rudyard Kipling once
described a Locomobile car as a “nickel-plated fraud” (Wise 1207).
8
Marc P. Singer and Ryan L. Sumner, Auto Racing in Charlotte and
the Carolina Piedmont, (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2003) 9
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
119
competition to see who is faster, stronger, or better than anyone
else. (Richard Petty, arguably NASCAR’s greatest driver, once
said that the day of the first auto race “was the day they built the
second automobile”9). Barringer himself helped foster such
competition when he became a successful auto dealer by the
1920s.10
Osmond Barringer could be considered one of the most
important people in the development of the early racing scene in
the South. The son of a Civil War general, Rufus Barringer,
Osmond was inspired by a race in Indianapolis (possibly the 500
itself) to create a track in Charlotte for drivers to race on.11 The
inaugural race at Charlotte Speedway was held on October 25,
1924 and the price to buy an event program was twenty-five
cents.12 The track that Barringer and his partners had built was a
one and a quarter mile oval (slightly shorter than most modern
racetracks) and was constructed out of pine and cypress planks.13
To add to the speed of the track, these planks were banked at
forty degrees.14 For such a banking to be used was incredible;
even today, race tracks rarely use banking that is higher than 30
degrees. Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee,
advertises that it has 36 degrees of banking in its turns, and
Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, Alabama, one of the
9
Joe Menzer, The Wildest Ride: A History of NASCAR (or How a
Bunch of Good Ol’ Boys Built a Billion-Dollar Industry of Wrecking
Cars) (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001) 57
10
Ibid, 11
11
Singer and Sumner, Auto Racing in Charlotte and the Carolina
Piedmont, 11.
12
Ibid, 13
13
Ibid, 12
14
Ibid.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
120
largest racetracks in the world and one of the fastest ever since it
opened in 1969, has just under 33 degrees of banking. The track
(and the speeds that the cars generated as they drove around it)
proved an instant success; the inaugural event drew 50,000
spectators.15 Unfortunately, the track would cease operations in
September 1927.16 However, the message had been sent:
Charlotte loved its racing.
The success of Charlotte Speedway, one of the earliest
non-dirt tracks in the South, is telling as far as history is
concerned. That success proved that racing could be a big
business for the people smart enough to exploit it. So it could be
said that the foundation was now laid for racing to develop. But
this development was not restricted to Charlotte. Race tracks
began springing up throughout the South, and investors began
attempting to make big money in the emerging sport. And the
interest in racing was not exclusively Southern. The West Coast
had a lively racing scene that drew racers from all over the
country, some of whom actually raced on both coasts.17 Many of
the races sanctioned in the South were organized by the
American Automobile Association (headquartered in New York)
and staged by Walter Stebbins, a New Yorker.18 It could
therefore be said that Northern companies and investors built a
Southern sport. Few Southerners organized races. Instead,
Southerners assumed the promoter’s role, specializing in
advertising races and making sure the fans showed up. The
AAA knew racing like few outfits, since it was the organizer of
the Indianapolis 500 and therefore knew how much money a race
15
Ibid. 14
16
Ibid, 12
17
Randal L. Hall, “Carnival of Speed: The Auto Racing Business in the
Emerging South, 1930-1950” North Carolina Historical Review,
Volume LXXXIV, Number 3, (July 2007): 249
18
Ibid, 245
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
121
could make its promoters and organizers. 19 Outside of the 500,
racing did not have the popularity in the North that it did below
the Mason-Dixon Line. At least one writer believes that the
financial structure of racing, much like that of other economic
activity in the South, was set up to enrich Northern investors.20
However, whether for Northern economic opportunity or
Southern love, racing began to develop quickly. Northerners
joined Southerners in races, and a Georgia journalist said in 1937
that “Baseball is out, Football is coming, but auto racing will
reign.”21 This shows the strength that racing had, since baseball
was still an incredibly popular sport at the time and would
continue to be for a number of years. It was in this environment
in the 1930s that Stock Car racing emerged as the dominant
racing type.22 However, it seems at this time that Charlotte was
not getting as much attention from the national racing scene as
you would expect the “Builder” of racing to get. North Carolina
itself had races, to be sure, but Charlotte was just one of many
locations throughout the Carolinas to be having races.
This would change in the 1940s after World War II. Bill
France, a racer himself who drove both stock cars and midget
cars (small cars with high power-to-speed ratios designed
specifically to race on dirt tracks), would be one of many men
who saw that stock car racing was an avenue to make money.
He himself noted that if fans wanted to see stock cars, they
would go to the races where stock cars raced.23 History would
later record Bill France as the founder of NASCAR, even though
19
Ibid, 248
20
Ibid, 247-248
21
Ibid, 248
22
Ibid, 249
23
Ibid, 260
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
122
many were present at the official founding event.24 Even in the
early years, racers and mechanics saw France as the sport’s
savior.25 The birth of NASCAR is where Charlotte comes back
onto the national auto racing scene. A new Charlotte Speedway
was opened in 1949 (interestingly enough, not far from where
the NASCAR Hall of Fame will be located) and was the site of
the first NASCAR Strictly Stock race.26 It was three quarters of
a mile long, two hundred yards wide, and made of dirt, but it still
was an official race.27 While the track only held twelve events
and closed in 1956, Charlotte once again had a race track. 28
Many of NASCAR’s top stars in the early years raced at the
track, including Lee Petty, the first racer among the legendary
Petty family who have been involved in NASCAR ever since.29
Even more importantly, the Strictly Stock division of NASCAR
would grow to become what is now the Sprint Cup division, the
highest tier of NASCAR racing. So by hosting the first race of
NASCAR’s top division, Charlotte has another feather in its
“Builders” cap.
The next track to bear Charlotte’s name came within
three years of the closing of the old track, but it is something of a
stretch to say the new facility truly belonged to Charlotte.
Charlotte Motor Speedway, known today as Lowe’s Motor
24
Neal Thompson, Driving with the Devil: Southern Moonshine,
Detroit Wheels, and the Birth of NASCAR, (New York: Crown
Publishers, 2006) 236
25
Ibid.
26
Perry Allen Wood, Silent Speedways of the Carolinas, (Jefferson,
NC: McFarland & Company, 2007) 32
27
Ibid, 39
28
Ibid
29
Ibid, 33
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
123
Speedway, was designed and built in 1959.30 Despite the
original name, it is actually located in Cabarrus County, which is
adjacent to Mecklenburg County, Charlotte’s home county.
Why? Because it was cheaper to build there than in Charlotte
itself.31 No matter; the official name for the track was Charlotte
Motor Speedway and everyone considered it to be part of
Charlotte. It was at this track that Charlotte received one of its
largest “Builders” credentials. The World 600, first held in
1961, is still held today and is the longest race that NASCAR
stages.32 Furthermore, CMS is considered to be the modernizer
in how money is distributed amongst racers. Since racing is a
job for the drivers, the money paid out is essential for being able
to keep racing and not have to find work elsewhere. CMS was
the first track to offer prize money for winning the pole position
(starting first in the field), drawing new attention to qualifying,
and in 1976 only the Daytona 500, NASCAR’s biggest race, paid
out more purse money than the $249,000 paid in the World
600.33 H.A. “Humpy” Wheeler, the general manager of the
speedway at the time said, “We pay proportionally more than
anyone else.”34 Modern day races pay out much more than
$249,000, but few races before the World 600 had even thought
to offer that much money. So CMS could be considered a leader
in the steps in establishing how races award prize money in the
modern day and drawing racers to the big races.
Unfortunately, Charlotte Motor Speedway has also
played a darker role in the sport’s development. The two
30
Jaime Levy, “Land Prices Lured Speedway Here”, The Charlotte
Observer, May 26, 2002
31
Ibid.
32
“CMS is Leader in Introducing New Purse Ideas” The Charlotte
Observer, October 4, 1976
33
Ibid.
34
Ibid.
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
124
developers of the track were Curtis Turner and Bruton Smith. 35
Turner was a driver and sometimes antagonist of Bill France,
while Smith was a businessman who would later become a
permanent thorn in the France family’s side. The track had had
money difficulties for some time but eventually those were
settled thanks to the intervention of stockholders,36 which meant
the track would stay open and Charlotteans would still have a
home track. However, in the course of dealing with the debts,
Turner and Smith waged an ugly power struggle for the track,
which ended when Smith obtained full ownership of it. While
this may not seem like such a significant event, considering the
track stayed open, it was the start of what would become a rocky
relationship between Smith and the France family. This
relationship continues to shape NASCAR today as Smith’s
Speedway Motorsports, Inc., which owns numerous tracks that
NASCAR holds events on, continues to present logistical
problems for NASCAR schedule makers, such as a recent
lawsuit that pushed NASCAR to host a second race at Fort
Worth, Texas’s Texas Motor Speedway. Demands for a second
race at California Speedway in Fontana, California, led to the
cancellation of all NASCAR races at Rockingham Motor
Speedway in Rockingham, North Carolina, another popular track
in the Carolinas.
One of the last major considerations in judging
Charlotte’s “Racing was built here” claim comes from the old
adage that real estate developers use: “Location, location,
location.” Many race teams make their headquarters near the
city, and a few drivers own homes in it or nearby. In 1987,
thirty-seven different drivers made their homes in either North
Carolina or northwestern South Carolina, including former
points champions Dale Earnhardt, Richard Petty, and Rusty
35
“It was a Rocky Start at Charlotte Track” The Charlotte Observer,
September 30, 1973
36
Obituary for “Albert Goines, 77, Motor Speedway Booster”, The
Charlotte Observer, January 21, 1986
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
125
Wallace. Today, former champion Jeff Gordon makes his home
in the city and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. also resides there.
Furthermore, the team that both drivers race for, Hendrick
Motorsports, is located in Concord near Lowe’s Motor
Speedway, and other top teams, such as Roush-Fenway Racing
and Chip Ganassi Racing also have their race shops in Concord.
Location also played a key role in the early years, since most
races were held at tracks fairly near to Charlotte. Locating the
race shops near the city meant that travelling time was never
excessive and getting to the tracks was reasonably simple.
While the adage “Racing was built here” may not be
entirely true, Charlotte can lay claim to many historic events in
auto racing’s history. The tracks that the city has had have held
numerous important races in Southern racing’s history.
Charlotte’s location made it a prime site for racers and it has
been the scene of many racing exploits. While important races
were held in other cities and influential logistical and
developmental decisions were made elsewhere, Charlotte seems
to have been the hub of NASCAR activity. So while racing may
not have been entirely built in Charlotte, few other cities have
enough history to challenge the claim.
III. The Moonshiners
The general belief among the fans of NASCAR racing
is that it was first made successful by the moonshiners in the
backwoods of the South. It is an easy enough myth to explain.
Stories like the one in the introduction are much simpler to tell
than ones featuring Bill France and his associates sitting around
and hashing out plans. To say that the first real racers were
outlaw moonshiners who learned how to wrench every ounce of
horsepower out of their vehicles if only to outrun the cops has a
much more exciting ring to it than a business meeting. The myth
has been spread numerous times over by sportswriters. For
example, Tom Sorenson of The Charlotte Observer once wrote,
“The story of NASCAR is more compelling than them all. Not
only did young men have to learn to drive fast, they had to learn
to make their cars go fast. They had to learn about the engine,
the chassis, and reliability. Blow an engine at the track and you
go home. Blow an engine with a car full of hooch and you go to
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
126
prison.”37 Sorenson does not say what he bases this assumption
on; he simply accepts it as the truth. If this is the truth, does it
really have any relation to Charlotte, where “Racing was built”?
Sorenson finishes up the article by stating that, in the NASCAR
Hall of Fame, “One wing should be devoted to the drivers who
brought their daring down from the hills and gave the sport an
edge it has yet to relinquish. The wing has to serve alcohol.
And the alcohol has to be tax-free.”38 Even drivers during
NASCAR’s early years had to deal with this stereotype: the
father of Ned Jarrett, one of NASCAR’s earliest champions, told
his son that “People who race cars are either bootleggers or
fools.”39Now to convince any race fan of something other than
the idea that the moonshiners played a part in the early years of
NASCAR would be a waste of time; records do show that some
former moonshiners did have success in organized auto racing.
However, the effect that they had on NASCAR itself is less than
believed; the former moonshiners did compete, with some of
them attaining great heights as both drivers and team owners.
But to say that only the moonshiners are responsible is false, and
the effect that the moonshiners had on the overall make-up of the
sport and organization lessened considerably as time went on.
The effect of moonshiners on the Charlotte segment of racing
was smaller still.
Before NASCAR officially began racing,
moonshining was much easier to spot amongst the drivers in
each field. Bill France himself won a race held in Ft. Wayne,
Indiana, in 1940 filling in for driver Roy Hall, who was in jail
37
Tom Sorenson, “Talent Born of Necessity”, The Charlotte Observer,
February 16, 2008, 1C
38
Ibid.
39
Menzer, The Wildest Ride, 79
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
127
for a moonshining charge.40 Lloyd Seay, whom Bill France once
called the “greatest stock car driver who ever lived,” 41 was a
known moonshiner who would end up dying during a moonshine
deal gone awry.42 Interestingly enough, revenue agents and
sheriff’s deputies were in attendance at his funeral.43 But all of
that happened in Georgia, far from Charlotte. In addition, many
of the most successful moonshiners, Seay included, raced
numerous times at Lakewood Speedway in Georgia and did not
actually start traveling to Charlotte until Atlanta banned
criminals from its races.44 Criminals, in this case, is a thinly
veiled shot at the moonshine runners who raced at Lakewood.
But Lakewood’s loss was Charlotte’s gain, since the
moonshiners whom the ban affected were some of the most
famous racers at the time and thus brought attention to Bill
France and the races that he was promoting and organizing.
As far as Charlotte and its tracks are concerned,
moonshiners do not seem to have had as great an effect in the
early years as one would expect. When the Charlotte Speedway
held its first race, the event was won by Jim Roper.45 Roper’s
40
Greg Fielden, NASCAR Chronicle, (Lincolnwood, Illinois:
Publications International) 10
41
Ibid. 15
42
Neal Thompson, Driving with the Devil: Southern Moonshine,
Detroit Wheels, and the Birth of NASCAR (New York: Crown
Publishers) 128-9
43
Ibid. 131
44
Ibid, 176
45
Al Pearce, “No.9: The first race”, (March 15, 2003)
http://www.dailypress.com/sports/motorracing/dp-
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
128
win is interesting from a historical standpoint for two reasons:
one, it was the first NASCAR race ever and it happened at
Charlotte, and two, Roper won after the original winner, Glenn
Dunnaway, was disqualified. Why? Dunnaway was found to
have driven a car with modifications: the rear springs had been
spread so that the traction and handling of the car was improved.
This is important, because modifying a car in that fashion was a
moonshiner’s trick.46 So even in loss the moonshiners made it
into the NASCAR history books. But this was the only real part
the moonshiners played in the overall picture of the first season.
The first NASCAR points champion was Red Byron, a former
hero in World War II, who had no known connection to
moonshining or the moonshine runners.47
This is not to say that moonshiners had no effect at all.
The men that Byron beat for the championship included the
Flock brothers, Bob, Fonty, and Tim. All three were former
moonshiners who became infamous for their antics both on and
off the track. Fonty was known for bating the sheriffs of towns
that he visited and enticing the cop to chase him. Fonty would
escape almost every time.48 Tim, on the other hand, would often
race while wearing shorts and black shoes49 and was the first
driver to ever compete with a monkey in his car with him.50,51
68984sy0mar17,0,4238057.story?coll=dp-auto-utility (accessed
3/23/09)
46
Ibid.
47
Menzer, The Wildest Ride p. 68
48
Singer and Sumner, Auto Racing in Charlotte and the Carolina
Piedmont, 33
49
Menzer, The Wildest Ride 69
50
Singer and Sumner, Auto Racing in Charlotte and the Carolina
Piedmont, 54
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
129
Tim Flock would later become one of the most successful drivers
in NASCAR history, with 40 wins in 189 starts for a winning
percentage of 21.2 percent.52 The success of the Flock brothers
proved that moonshiners could be successful in NASCAR
racing, but the fact that so few moonshiners joined them in the
big events shows that the moonshiners were either on the way
out or were not competing anymore.
By the time of the first year of racing at Lowe’s Motor
Speedway in 1960, moonshiners had begun losing influence as
drivers. Of the top ten finishing drivers in that inaugural October
race, only one of them had clear ties to moonshine running. That
man was Junior Johnson, who finished fifth.53 So even though
only a little more than ten years had passed, already moonshiners
had fallen out of favor, whatever the reason. Johnson was a
special case. While Tim Flock would not retire until 1961, he
51
Flock’s simian co-pilot also gives him the dubious honor of most
ridiculous reason for having to take a pit stop when the monkey, named
Jocko Flocko, wiggled out of his safety harness, opened a trap door in
the floor of Flock’s car, was struck by a pebble that was on the dirt
track, and went crazy, scratching Flock and making it impossible to
drive. Flock pulled into the pits, grabbed Jocko, and threw him out the
window. (Singer and Sumner 54)
52
“Tim Flock” 2005 http://www.gonascargo.com/drivers/tim-flock.php
(accessed 3/23/09)
53
“A Look Back: Whatever Happened to Top Ten Finishers of First
October Race at CMS” The Charlotte Observer (September 30, 1980)
2Z
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
130
had not won a race since 1956. 54 This meant that the real
moonshiners were no longer the top drivers that they had once
been. Johnson, while not from Charlotte, had been a moonshiner
from a young age. He said once that “Makin’ moonshine was a
hand-me-down trade that was passed down through the
generations where I came from.”55 Johnson would serve time in
prison for moonshine running and would, in fact, receive a
presidential pardon in 1986 from Ronald Reagan for the
conviction.56 He would also go on to become one of the most
successful drivers and car owners NASCAR has ever seen, and
he is arguably the greatest NASCAR driver to have never won
the top-level championship. But Johnson was the last of a breed;
after him, no moonshiner would ever have major success in
NASCAR’s top division. They may have had a good run, but the
time of the moonshiners as public racing figures ended when
Johnson sold his team and officially retired from the racing
business before the 1996 season.57
IV. Conclusions
The NASCAR Hall of Fame will be placed in
Charlotte, and it is as deserving a city as any other. Charlotte
has been home to many important events in racing history, and
will most likely be home to many others. Is Charlotte truly a
fitting home for the hall?
The short answer is yes.
54
“Tim Flock” http://www.racing-reference.info/driver?id=flockti01
(accessed 3/23/09)
55
Menzer, The Wildest Ride, 59
56
Steve Potter, “Sports World Specials; Rough Road”, The New York
Times, February 10, 1986, 2C
57
Tom Higgins, “Shepherd Remains a Tie to White Lightning Era”,
The Charlotte Observer, May 22, 1996, 12F
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131
The long answer is yes, but with a few qualifications
that should always be considered by those who claim to
understand racing history. While it is true that Charlotte did
have those many events, it was not the only city to be home to a
lively racing scene. Atlanta, notably, had many of the top
drivers of the early years calling it home. Whether they raced
there out of love for the state and Lakewood Speedway or
because many of their best customers made that area their home
is irrelevant. They did race there, and they had fun getting paid
to do it. And the move to Charlotte was done with an eye on the
money and the opportunity to race.
With NASCAR moving into the main stream of major
sports and entertainment, NASCAR needed a semi-central
location that can draw many people to the Hall. Charlotte is an
excellent place in that regard, with most of the eastern seaboard
within a journey of a day or two. And with said location,
NASCAR can fend off arguments that it is abandoning its roots
as it moves into the mainstream. NASCAR has already had
movies made about it in both the serious sense (Days of
Thunder) and the comical (Talladega Nights: The Ballad of
Ricky Bobby) and that is drawing attention to the sport. Some of
the scenes in the movies are even based on fact; a scene in Days
of Thunder featuring two of the main characters was based on
the antics of drivers Curtis Turner and Joe Weatherly, who
would often drive rental cars in drag races against each other and
frequently wreck them.58 The average filmgoer might consider
such scenes silly, but they are part of the legends and lore of
NASCAR.
One other benefit that might come from NASCAR’s
increased exposure is attention from historians. Other sports
have numerous historians who can be turned to when a fact is
needed for a subject. Even professional wrestling has historians.
But NASCAR historians are few and far between. One is
assigned to the Hall of Fame (Albert “Buz” McKim), but he is
58
Menzer, The Wildest Ride, 90
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132
only one historian and there should be more.59 There are many
topics worthy of study concerning the history of NASCAR and
the city that helped build it.
NASCAR may pride itself on having a history that
was created in dusty chases on the back country roads of the
Southeast, but the stories that other drivers and workers tell are
just as important. The Hall will provide a good place for fans of
all ages to learn about NASCAR and racing in general. And
while Charlotte may not be the only conceivable choice for its
home city, it is a very worthy spot.
Works Cited
“Albert Goines, 77, Motor Speedway Booster.” Obituary. The
Charlotte Observer. 21 January 1986
“A Look Back: Whatever Happened to Top Ten Finishers of
First October Race at CMS.” The Charlotte Observer.30
September 1980: 2Z
“CMS is Leader in Introducing New Purse Ideas.” The Charlotte
Observer 4 October, 1976
DiCicco, Chris. “NASCAR Hall of Fame.”
http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/40634/recreation_a
nd_sports/nascar_hall_of_fame.html (accessed 3/23/09)
Fielden, Greg. NASCAR Chronicle. Lincolnwood, Illinois:
Publications International, 2003
59
http://www.nascarhall.com/the-hall.php (About Us) (accessed
3/23/09)
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
133
Hall, Randal L. “Carnival of Speed: The Auto Racing Business
in the Emerging South, 1930-1950.” North Carolina
Historical Review. Volume LXXXIV, Number 3, (July
2007)
Higgins, Tom. “Shepherd Remains a Tie to White Lightning
Era.” The Charlotte Observer. 22 May 1996: 12F
“It was a Rocky Start at Charlotte Track” The Charlotte
Observer, 30 September, 1973
Levy, Jaime. “Land Prices Lured Speedway Here.” The
Charlotte Observer 26 May 2002
Menzer, Joe. The Wildest Ride: A History of NASCAR (or How a
Bunch of Good Ol’ Boys Built a Billion-Dollar Industry
of Wrecking Cars). New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001
Pearce, Al. “No.9: The first race.” Daily Press 15 March 2003
<http://www.dailypress.com/sports/motorracing/dp68984sy0mar17,0,4238057.story?coll=dp-auto-utility>
(accessed 3/23/09)
Poole, David. “Inside Motorsports.” The Charlotte Observer. 5
March 2009: 3C
Potter, Steve. “Sports World Specials; Rough Road.”The New
York Times. 10 February, 1986: 2C
Singer, Marc and Ryan Sumner. Auto Racing in Charlotte and
the Carolina Piedmont. Charleston, SC: Arcadia
Publishing, 2003
Sorenson, Tom. “Talent Born of Necessity.” The Charlotte
Observer, 16 February, 2008. 1C
“The NASCAR Hall of Fame” <http://www.nascarhall.com/thehall.php> (About Us) (accessed 3/23/09)
134
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Thompson, Neal. Driving with the Devil: Southern Moonshine,
Detroit Wheels, and the Birth of NASCAR. New York:
Crown Publishers, 2006
“Tim Flock” 2005 < http://www.gonascargo.com/drivers/timflock.php> (accessed 3/23/09)
“Tim Flock” http://www.racingreference.info/driver?id=flockti01 (accessed 3/23/09)
Wise, David B., "British Steam-Car Pioneers", in Northey, Tom,
ed. World of Automobiles (London: Orbis Publishing,
1974), Volume 11, 1207.
Wood, Perry Allen. Silent Speedways of the Carolinas. Jefferson,
NC: McFarland & Company, 2007
“World Stadiums – Stadium List :: 100,000+ Stadiums”
http://www.worldstadiums.com/stadium_menu/stadium_
list/100000.shtml
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
135
Wade Love
A Woman’s Heart in The Tale of Genji

The Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu circa
1001 CE, is one of the hallmarks of Heian culture and has been
recognized as a masterpiece of world literature. Murasaki was a
woman of the imperial aristocracy; as the daughter of a regional
governor, she was able to spend much of her time in the Imperial
court, where she was able to capture glimpses of Heian culture in
all of its aspects. It would seem that her time within the court
later influenced her in writing The Tale of Genji, which not only
captures the social aspects of the Heian aristocracy but also
captures the psychological issues and dilemmas that formed as a
result of these social aspects (Mack 1292). In her writings,
Murasaki predominantly focused on women and how society and
culture has often relegated women to the roles of second class
citizens. Murasaki, being a woman herself, focuses on the
psychological effects that result from women being pushed into a
role of subservience to their male counterparts. Unlike men,
who could carry on multiple relationships with various consorts,
Japanese women were often forced to live behind closed doors;
most women of high status would spend much of their time
trapped within the confines of the home. Since men were
allowed to have multiple lovers and wives, it was common for
the men to live with a different woman each night. Because of
this, a woman’s status was often defined by how much time she
spent with her lover; the more time spent, the higher the
woman’s status. Naturally, women were forced to compete with
each other in order to receive a man’s attentions. Failure to
attain a lover’s attention often resulted in heartbreak and a great
deal of animosity and malice towards other women as well as the
lover himself (Mack 1293-1294). It is this aspect of the Heian
courtship custom that Murasaki focuses on in her writings. In
this paper, I will focus on how women felt in Heian society
compared to their male counterparts and how these feelings often
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influenced the relationships that each woman was engaged in.
Because Genji encounters many women in the course of the
story, I will narrow the scope of choices and for brevity’s sake
focus on one. Lady Rokujo, who is a minor character in the
story, is one of the most forceful women to involve herself in
Genji’s life. Because her reactions to the constraints of her
situation are so strong, she offers an excellent window into
Murasaki views of female subservience in a patriarchal society.
Lady Rokujo, one of Murasaki’s most dynamic
characters, gives a prime demonstration of the emotional tension
that women suffered during the Heian period. In The Tale of
Genji, she makes her first appearance as the woman residing in
the Sixth Ward next to Genji’s former childhood nurse. Genji
takes notice of her and her attendant Yugao, whom Genji
develops stronger feelings for as the story progresses, mainly
because Rokujo “was rather too zealous, or, we may say
jealous”(Shikibu 81). Finally, Genji, not being able to keep
Rokujo from finding out, decides to whisk Yugao away to one of
Rokujo’s smaller mansions, where he could continue his new
romance. It was during the very night of his arrival that Genji,
while in bed with Yugao, would encounter a ghostly apparition.
Upon being recognized by Genji, the ghost asks, “you [Genji]
who think yourself so fine, how comes it that you have brought
to toy with you here this worthless common creature, picked up
at random in the streets?”(Keene’s Anthology 122). While
admonishing Genji, the apparition begins to pull Yugao off the
bed until Genji calls for assistance. Although the text makes no
mention of whom the ghost resembles, a previous statement
made by Genji in which he claims, “How tiresome the other
(Lady Rokuja) was, with her eternal susceptibilities, jealousies,
and suspicions! For a while at any rate [I will] stop seeing her”
(122), suggests that it was the spirit of Lady Rokujo, who was
plagued by Genji’s negligence, that haunted Genji in his bed.
Her feelings of jealousy and suspicion, which appalled Genji,
would soon become the instruments that gave her wrath the
power to transcend physical boundaries and exact revenge on
those who would keep her from being the center of attention in
Genji’s life. Furthermore, Norma Field believes that Murasaki’s
use of a possessing spirit would “become a means of dramatizing
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the unspoken communication of troubled lovers’ thoughts”
(Field 47).
In traditional Heian society, a woman was often left
“alone, waiting in vain for her lover to come. [She would] in her
grief [imagine that] she [would] fade away like the dew. The
lover’s negligence [would] not rouse her anger, nor tear [her
with] violent jealousy and apprehension. Instead, she [yielded]
despondently to her fate” (Japanese Culture 109). Women
weren’t expected ever to voice their concerns to their husbands
and lovers. Because the society was patriarchal in nature,
women were relegated to the spot of second class citizens, where
it was expected of them to obey, if despondently, the will of
men, who were considered superior to them in all facets of life.
Unlike Norma Field, who argues that Murasaki’s use of the spirit
creates a bridge from which women could finally allow their
feelings be known to a male dominated society, Nina Cornyetz
believes Murasaki’s use of the spirit promoted feminist ideas. In
her argument, Cornyetz notes that Japan underwent a period of
religious conflict in which Buddhism, which promoted the idea
that women were spiritually polluted beings, took center stage in
the political and social realms, thus undermining traditional
Shinto beliefs, which regarded women as spiritually enlightened
beings. This change effectively promoted a system where
women were second to men. When Murasaki created the
spiritual form of Rokujo, which was strong-willed, ill-tempered,
and unable to surrender to the desires of any man, she was
actually promoting the revitalization of Shinto religious beliefs.
In her essay, Cornyetz draws from the ideas of Mieko to promote
her view of female dominance in the writings of Shikibu.
According to Cornyetz:
[T]he author Murasaki, says Mieko, empathized with the
Rokujo lady, who in turn had a shamanistic influence on
Genji himself. . . . Mieko’s primary allegiance is to the
suppressed shamaness dwelling deep within the Rokujo
lady, and by extension within all women. Just as the
Rokujo lady is forced by social circumstances into
devious and mystical reprisal in order to assert herself in
the context of repressive male-centric society, so too is
Mieko compelled to resurrect the female shamans of
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antecedent narratives in defiance of male dominance.
(137)
Regardless of which side one takes, it can be agreed upon that
Lady Rokujo, both in body and spirit, is a symbolic
representation of the emotions Heian women of this time felt as
they forced themselves to compete with other women for male
favors. Furthermore, it would seem apparent that Murasaki
deplored the Heian social system and sought to promote the idea
of elevating the status of women in the social structure. The
question one needs to ask now is what was the significance of
Yugao’s death in the story? What is Murasaki trying to convey?
Given that the spirit, after admonishing Genji, began to pull lady
Yugao off the bed, it would seem Murasaki is addressing how
women typically felt when competing for the attention of a
husband or lover. In Yugao’s death, Murasaki captures the
emotional damage that women have suffered through the years
from being nothing more than “booty calls.” Following the
incident with the apparition, Genji recovers quickly from
Yugao’s death, but, as one can see, Rokujo has not forgotten; in
fact, her retribution has only begun.
Following the death of Yugao, which marked the
beginning of Rukujo’s battle with Genji, Rokujo’s spirit would
make several more key appearances in Genji’s life. The next
appearance of her spirit is in chapter nine, when Lady Rokujo
encounters Lady Aoi, Genji’s first wife, and the woman who is
carrying his child. During the procession, Genji passes Lady
Aoi’s caravan, which is right beside Lady Rokujo’s. As he
passes the caravans, he notices that “Lady [Aoi’s], however, was
the most striking, and as he passed by the attendants saluted him
courteously, which act Genji acknowledged”(Shikibu 157).
Lady Rokujo took notice of this act, which once again causes her
feelings of jealousy and suspicion to rise. In the following
passages, Lady Aoi begins to suffer under demonic influences
similar to those suffered by Yugao in chapter four. What is
different in this scene is that the possessive spirit is immediately
identified with Lady Rokujo, which is validated by the fact that
“she had sometimes [dreamed], after weary thinking, between
slumber and waking, in which she seemed to fly to some
beautiful girl, apparently Lady Aoi, and to engage in bitter
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contention and struggle with her”(Shikibu 158). Ultimately,
Lady Aoi succumbs to the power of the spirit and she dies after
giving birth.
What is interesting here is that the “jealous spirit” is
immediately associated with Lady Rokujo, whereas in the
chapter regarding Yugao Murasaki makes no immediate
accusation. Why? It would seem that Murasaki Shikibu did not
want immediately to accuse Lady Rokujo because she was trying
to avoid making Lady Rokujo appear as nothing more than a
mindless killer. If one believes Norma Field’s argument
regarding Murasaki’s use of the spirit to convey female emotions
and perceptions of Heian society, then the reason she waits until
Rokujo’s encounter with Aoi is to reinforce the notions of
betrayal and jealousy that plague Heian women. Norma Field
states, “if the Rokujo Lady were to hastily identify herself at this
point (the death of Yugao), she would become a mere murderess
who could arouse only a commonplace sort of interest”(Field
47). By waiting until now, Murasaki has created an ample
opportunity to not only reinforce those general feelings of
betrayal and jealousy women suffer, but she is now able to
extend on those feelings and aid the reader in capturing a
glimpse of Lady Rokujo’s mindset as she begins to confront her
own feelings. From this chapter alone, it would seem that
Murasaki finally brings Rokujo’s jealousy out into the open. In
one particular scene, Genji goes to visit the ailing Aoi, who tells
him, “Oh, bind my wandering spirit, pray, Dear one, nor let it
longer stray”(Shikibu 159). Genji senses that these words were
not those of Lady Aoi but of Lady Rokujo. This point is only
validated when “the face of the Lady Aoi seemed momentarily to
assume the likeness of that of Rokujo” (Shikibu 160). It is in
this scene that jealousy becomes the most prominent feature.
When a person becomes jealous of another, one of the most
common responses an individual makes is trying to put him or
herself in the shoes of the one he or she envies. In the story of
Genji, Murasaki takes this mental conception and causes it to
manifest physically in Lady Aoi.
In the case of Yugao, Murasaki has the spirit
immediately kill her, which seems to show the intensity of a
Heian woman’s jealousy when she is placed second to another.
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In the case of Aoi, this jealousy is presented in a different
manner. Instead of being born of pride, this jealousy seems to be
born out of loneliness. Rokujo was upset because she couldn’t
gain Genji’s attention; she could not make him look at her and
acknowledge her in the same manner he acknowledged Lady
Aoi. Her jealousy stems from her feelings of inadequacy; thus
placing herself in the body of Aoi was the only option Rokujo
had for obtaining Genji’s affection. Following this incident,
Lady Aoi gives birth to her child. Following her birth, the priests
and monks were called in to perform certain rituals to help her
rid herself of the “living spirit” that was tormenting her. Rokujo
hears of the birth, and once again she becomes jealous because
she feels she cannot gain Genji’s attention. What is strange is
that “when she began to move about, she could not understand
how it was, but she perceived that her dress was scented with a
strange odor. She thought this most surprising, and took baths
and changed her dress, in order to get rid of it; but the odor soon
returned, and she was disgusted with herself” (Shikibu160). As
previously noted, women of Heian society were often defined by
the relationships they had with their husbands and lovers.
Because Rokujo could not gain Genji’s affection, the jealousy
she had for other women who could do so manifests itself in the
form of a ghostly apparition that attacked those who would keep
her from Genji. However, in the case of Lady Aoi, Rokujo’s
own attacks are now being turned against her. When she begins
to smell the odor that made her become “disgusted with herself,”
she is in fact wearing the perfume of Lady Aoi, whose body she
inhabited. Knowing that she is wearing Aoi’s perfume, her
anger and frustration grows.
In her work, Norma Field notes that “poppy seeds [were]
used in the rites of exorcism, and their scent on her person
confirms her suspicion of her spirit’s mischief. Her misery only
mounts, culminating in her spirit’s killing Aoi while the men of
her household are absent”(Field 51). Despite her sorrow and
feelings of inadequacy, Rokujo simply could not get over being
relegated to a mere sexual plaything of Genji’s. Aoi has what
Rokujo wants, and Rokujo has become so frustrated that she
feels she must kill Aoi to compensate for her feelings of betrayal
and jealousy. Following Aoi’s death, Rokujo and her daughter
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“disappear for some time from our scenes in the capital”(Shikibu
166).
Between the arguments of Cornyetz and Field, it would
seem that Field’s view of the ghostly apparition as a vehicle for
women to make their feelings known without suffering
consequences at the hands of men is the more valid. In this case,
the apparition does not just kill Lady Aoi; it tries to take her
place. Through her spirit, Rokujo is trying to obtain Genji’s
affection, which she has been completely devoid of since their
first encounter. Rokujo loves Genji and only wanted to be with
him, but her inability to accomplish this goal in the physical
realm leads her to take action that transcends the physical and
therefore couldn’t be prevented by anyone. Thus, the apparition
merely acted on the emotional desires of Rokujo. What this tells
us about female perception of the Heian courtship practices is
that women—Murasaki at least—greatly detested the notion of
competing for someone they loved. Not only did these
competitions breed jealousy and violence, they also bred notions
of female inadequacy. Women who simply couldn’t compete
often saw themselves as worthless and pitiful. Furthermore their
inability to express their grief only intensified the emotions they
felt, effectively causing severe emotional damage to each woman
who considered herself lowly.
While Norma Field’s argument best explains the death
of Lady Aoi, Cornyetz’s argument isn’t without merit . As the
story progresses, the spirit of Rokujo will appear again on
several occasions. Through the story, the spirit will soon lead
Murasaki (Violet) to her death, the spirit will plague Genji’s life,
and the spirit of Rokujo will affect the lives of Genji’s sons long
after Rokujo has died. Taking all these things together, the
frequent attacks made by Rokujo’s spirit on Genji and those he
cares for seem to reinforce the feministic notions forwarded by
Cornyetz. The spirit, representing female superiority, endlessly
attacks Genji, a symbolic representation of a male-centric
society, from beyond the grave. The seemingly endless attacks
could be construed as Murasaki calling for an end to the current
Heian society and a revitalizing of the traditional Shinto beliefs
mentioned above where women are relegated to positions of
authority and dominion.
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Lady Rokujo is perhaps one of the most influential
characters in The Tale of Genji. While her appearance in the
story was brief, she maintained an enduring influence on Genji
and those who he cared for most. Genji believed he could
dismiss her as a mere nuisance, but “Rokujo [was] far too great a
lady for Genji to treat in this manner, as Genji is reminded by his
father, and her dramatically effective resentment springs from
accepted social reality” (Tyler 5). Rokujo is the embodiment of
female resentment of the Heian courtship practices. Murasaki’s
use of the spirit Rokujo effectively portrayed this female
resentment. While critics dispute the reasons Murasaki decided
to use the ghostly apparition, some scholars today agree that
Murasaki was one of the earliest feminists seeking to end what
she considered a male-centric society where women, who were
considered spiritually unclean, were relegated to the role of
subordinates. Regardless of what view one takes, it is evident
that Murasaki covertly deplored the Heian social system for how
it treated women. Rokujo’s feelings toward Genji, while rooted
in personal pride, seem to carry a sense of diminished self-worth
that led her to take on the form of Aoi, no matter how
humiliating that action might be.
Annotated Bibliography
Cornyetz, Nina. Dangerous Women, Deadly Words: Phallic
Fantasy Modernity in Three Japanese Writers.
California, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.
pg: 122-139. NetLibrary. Ethel K. Library, Wingate NC.
3/21/09.
Regarding the Tale of Genji, Cornyetz investigates into how
feminism was portrayed throughout the Genji tale. I her writing,
Cornyetz seems to dismiss the notion that this tale promotes
feminism ideals; instead, the concept of female equality
wouldn’t even be considered until the 20th century. The
components of the tale that supposedly hint to feminist ideals are
really part of what is known as the commonly human. This term
generally states that the emotional aspects that defined the
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
143
multitudes of women presented in the story are actually defining
Japanese nativism. Basically, women, such as the girls Genji and
his companions mentioned in chapter 2 of the story, who were
independent and often went against the social norms weren’t
promoting feminism; instead, these women were portraying
Japanese identity. Ultimately, I think this book will be a useful
source in that it provides an alternative perspective to the
feminist role that contemporary scholars seem to want to
associate with the women of this text.
Danly, Robert. “The Golden Age of Japanese Culture: Murasaki
Shikibu.” Ed. Danly, Robert. Expanded Edition: Volume
One. New York: Norton and Company, Inc., 1997. pg.
1292-1300.
D’Etcheverry, Charo. Love After the Tale of Genji: Rewriting the
world of the Shining Prince. Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Harvard University Press, 2007.
Like many literary scholars today, D’Etcheverry sees The Tale of
Genji has the greatest literary achievement of the Heian period.
However, he believes that most scholars have placed little value
in this work. To rectify this misconception, D’Etcheverry
carefully analyzes the plot of the story, its characters, and the
predominant themes of the story in order for readers today to
capture a glimpse of the unique aspects in Heian culture.
Furthermore, D’Etcheverry tries to find a link between The Tale
of Genji and the subsequent texts that would be produced later
on; mainly to prove just how influential Mursaki’s story was in
the development of the Heian arts. This will be a valuable source
to use because it grants a deeper analysis of the prominent
characters of the story, particularly of Genji and the various
women he associated with in the story. Through D’Etcheverry’s
analysis, it will be possible to develop a greater understanding of
the unique traits that each woman Genji encountered, and how
these women often broke the image of the “ideal woman” men of
the Heian period often developed in their minds. Furthermore,
this source will be analyzing the theme love within Heian
society, which will be beneficial in trying to understand the
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relationships Genji had throughout the story from his stepmother
to Murasaki. With this source, I will be able to perform an indepth analysis of women and their roles in relationships and
society as Murasaki conveyed it.
Field, Norma. The Splendor of Longing in the Tale of Genji.
Princeton, NJ. Princeton University Press, 1987. pg: 4563
Dr. Norma Field’s work is a critical analysis of the various
women throughout the Tale of Genji. In her work, she
investigates the emotional, political, social, and physical aspects
of Japanese aesthetics, while emphasizing the role of women in
the text, particularly how their characteristics and actions had
profound influence on the character of Prince Genji.
Furthermore, her work analyzes the political, social, and erotic
aspects of relationships in Heian culture, and how Murasaki
conveys these aspects through the women Genji was involved
with in the story. Like D’Etcheverry’s work, this source is quite
valuable; mainly because it performs an even more in-depth
analysis of the women in Genji’s life, and how Genji would
come to treat each woman. Through this source, one can gain a
greater understanding of Japanese women and how they were
perceived by their male counterparts in the Heian imperial court.
Fu, Charles Wei-Hsun. Japan in Traditional and Postmodern
Perspectives. New York: Albany State University of
New York Press, 1995.
In Charles Fu’s writings, he investigates into a variety of
external factors that may have contributed to Shikibu’s portrayal
of women throughout The Tale of Genji. One such influenced
mentioned is the role of Buddhism in Heian society. In
Buddhism, women typically are considered to be inherently evil
compared to their male counterparts. Because of their sinful
nature, it was more or less mankind’s responsibility to keep
women in check. Fu believes that this theology can be one
contributing factor to female submission in the story, which
would make sense considering that Shikibu often referred to
Wingate Research Review/Fall 2009
145
Buddhist theology and practices within the story. However, Fu
notes that factors such as religion didn’t simply relegate women
to the role of a second class citizen. In his research, Shinto
theology, and the traditional Japanese belief that the formation of
Japan began with the female sun god Amaretsu, allowed for
women to be independent and assertive. Like Buddhism, Shikibu
draws on these additional factors to create dynamic women that
were not commonly seen in traditional Japanese society.
Ultimately, this source would prove valuable in that it provides
numerous factors, such as the one’s mentioned above, that could
have contributed to the role of women within the story.
Hume, Nancy, and Donald Keene. “Feminine Sensibility in
Heian Era.” Japanese Aesthetics and Culture. New
York: State University of New York Press, 1995. 109124
In regards to The Tale of Genji, Keene, the author of chapter
regarding feminine sensibility, tries to uncover why women in
general played such a minor role in influencing Heian literature,
but he also investigate the significance of feminine sensibility’s
triumph in Japanese literature at this time. Throughout the Heian
period, the cultural, social, and political structures of society
emphasized beauty and romance above all things; anything else,
warfare, political administrations etc, were of little concern to
the Japanese at this time. What Keene considers in his research is
how women were often portrayed in the text. Was this portrayal
merely a reflection of Heian society at the time, or did Shikibu
introduce some relatively new ideas not previously accepted in
Heian society? To answer these questions, Keene focuses on the
women of the book and how they are portrayed by men in
general, and what their relationship was like with Genji.
Seidensticker, Edward, and Haruo Shirance. Miller, Barbara
Stoller, ed. “The Worlds of Asian Literature: Japanese
Texts.” Masterworks of Asian Literature in Comparative
Perspective. New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc, 1994. pg. 3750 and 390-403
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Seidensticker and Shirance focuses heavily on characterization.
Their primarily objective is to look at the psychology behind
each character. How does each character capture the cultural
aspects of Heian society? Furthermore, the authors use the roles
given to the women in the story to determine what kinds of
political, social, cultural, and emotional difficulties women
suffered through. To understand the plight of women, the authors
also try to determine the role of romance in daily courtship. Was
it a necessary component to marriage, or was romance simply a
form of “foreplay” that was used to keep sexual relationships
exciting? Finally, the authors do a comparative study of cultural
differences between Heian culture and its European counterpart.
Shikibu, Murasaki. The Tale of Genji. translator: Kencho
Suematsu. Boston, Massachusetts: Tuttle Publishing,
1974. pg: 76-101, 155-164.
Shikibu, Murasaki. “Yugao.” Anthology of Japanese Literature.
Ed. Keene, Donald. New York: Grove Press, 1955. pg.
106-136.
Tyler, Royall. “Marriage, Rank, and Rape in The Tale of Genji.”
Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian
Context.7 March, 2002. 20 Feb., 2009
http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue7/tyler.html
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Modeling Enrollment Decisions for Wingate
University Applicants
Rebecca Dalrymple

Introduction
Michael B. Paulsen (1990) states that “admissions
officers can ensure that students will ‘fit’ the institution if they
have a sound understanding of the reasoning that underlies a
student’s enrollment decision-making process” (p. xvii). The
main objective of most colleges and universities is to attract
students who will be successful at their particular schools.
Wingate University is not any different. The first step in
attracting students who “fit” is to understand who decides to
enroll at Wingate University. This is why Dr. Barry Cuffe and I
decided on a summer research project that would not only
investigate the characteristics of matriculants but also model
which students will enroll at Wingate University.
Institutions want to be able to predict as soon as they
possibly can how many applicants will actually matriculate so
that they can manage scholarships, housing, and tuition revenue.
The models created by this research will help Wingate
University to do just that. Up until now, the admissions
personnel at Wingate University could not be reasonably certain
of the number of matriculants for a fall semester until the middle
of July. With enrollment models, the admissions office will be
able to predict the number of applicants who will enroll much
sooner, maybe even as soon as February. This will help them
decide how many more applicants they should expect to admit
after this point. Research on the applicants who become
matriculants is really only one aspect of the research project,
however. The retention and success of these matriculants are
just as important. In fact, this summer research project is the
second part of a research agenda that began in the summer of
2007. The first part of the research produced models to predict a
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student’s number of semesters at Wingate University and his/her
exit GPA. Therefore, the models created this past summer
(2008), which help to determine who will actually enroll at the
university, can be combined with last summer’s models to
predict not only whether an applicant will enroll, but also how
well this student will do. This analysis will help admissions
officers decide whom to admit and allow them to adjust financial
aid awards to groups of students with similar enrollment and
success characteristics.
Literature Review
Many other researchers have studied the enrollment
behavior of students for the university community as a whole
and for individual institutions. Michael B. Paulsen (1990)
compares a collection of several enrollment studies in his book,
College Choice: Understanding Student Enrollment Behavior.
There are two levels of college choice behavior studies: macrolevel studies and micro-level studies. Macro-level studies show
how certain factors affect total enrollment of a university while
micro-level studies focus on what affects an individual student’s
enrollment choice. Both of these kinds of studies analyze the
impact of environmental, institutional, and student level
characteristics on enrollment and can be performed on the
national, state, or university level (Paulsen, 1990). The research
performed by Hossler, Schmit, and Vesper (1999) is an example
of an enrollment study at the state level because they studied the
college decision-making process of high school students in
Indiana. Through surveys, they followed 4,923 students through
their four years in high school until January after their high
school graduation. They also interviewed a sub-sample of 56 of
these students until four years after their graduation. The
researchers focused on three stages of the post-secondary
educational decision-making process: predisposition, search,
and choice. Hossler et al. (1999) found that “parental support
and encouragement to go to college were the best predictors of
educational aspirations” (p. 23) in the predisposition stage,
which is the stage when students decide if they want to go to
college or not. After the predisposition stage, students enter the
search stage and consider different types of institutions and
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various individual colleges within those types. The researchers
saw that few students were certain of which institutional
characteristics were important to them and what they were
looking for in a college. Even though parental encouragement
was a significant factor for predicting educational aspirations, it
was not significant in the equation for final college attendance.
For the choice stage in the decision-making process, parent’s
education and income were better predictors of actual attendance
at an institution (Hossler et al., 1999). Hossler, Schmit, and
Vesper’s (1999) research helps colleges in Indiana to better
understand their applicant pools and how these students make
decisions. The researchers warned their readers against
generalizing these findings to students in other states since all
states are different (Hossler et al., 1999). Paulsen (1990) also
advises institutions to perform their own research on enrollment
and their students even though many of the enrollment studies
included in his book showed similar conclusions in what factors
are significant: “Each college must ask itself whether the
attributes of students they currently seek suggest that these
students are the ones who will most likely find the college
appropriate and attractive” (p. 76).
Many individual institutions use admissions information
and many other kinds of easily gathered data to predict student
enrollment and success at the college. Armacost and Wilson
(2002) produced three models in order to predict enrollment at a
growing metropolitan research university. They had a long-term
aggregate model, a short-term detailed model, and a graduate
model by college. These researchers were interested in
predicting the total number of students for a certain semester.
They used historical rates of past enrollment with transition
predictions for their models. The transition predictions included
trying to predict the number of new students for a semester,
students graduating, dropouts, and students returning from a
previous semester (Armacost & Wilson, 2002). The Wingate
University researchers focused their analysis solely on freshman
applicants for the fall semester. Saket Khajuria (2007)
performed an enrollment analysis at Ohio University that is very
similar to this research at Wingate University. He predicted
student matriculation using the data from Ohio University’s
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admissions office with 60.2% overall accuracy for the 2005
applicants. He looked at many of the same variables as the
Wingate University researchers: high school rank, SAT-Verbal,
SAT-Math, gender, and race. A logit-based logistic regression
model and a linear regression model were compared for the data,
and the linear model was chosen because it was slightly more
accurate with matriculation (Khajuria, 2007). The Wingate
University researchers chose to use logistic regression instead.
However, researchers are not only interested in predicting who
will enroll at their universities, but they also want to know how
well these students are going to do. Many colleges and
universities use a variety of techniques to try to predict dropouts
(Rampell, 2008). Most of this research is used to try to warn
students who are showing a risk of failure. Institutions use high
school GPA, SAT scores, dining hall attendance, class website
activity, place of residence, and even personality traits to try to
predict which students will drop out (Rampell, 2008).
Enrollment analysis and student success research can help
universities to target the students who will be the most successful
at their particular schools.
Admissions personnel are able to influence these
students’ enrollment with financial aid offers. Several studies
have shown that financial aid is an effective way of affecting a
student’s decision (e.g., Braunstein, McGrath, & Pescatrice,
1999; Hossler, 2000; Spaulding & Olswang, 2005). Braunstein
et al. (1999) found that “For every $1,000 increase in the amount
of financial aid offered, the probability of enrollment increases
between 1.1% and 2.5%” (p. 252). Somers (1993) and St. John
(1994), referenced by Braunstein et al. (1999), say that a “Robin
Hood” approach to distributing financial aid is the most
effective. They recommend handing out financial aid more
evenly across the accepted student body. Spaulding and
Olswang (2005) also found a similar conclusion in their research
on a specific university: “For Research U, spreading out the
need-based aid to a greater number of students appears to
positively impact admission yield” (p. 34). When universities
use the “Robin Hood” approach they are giving a smaller amount
of financial aid to more people. This is effective because
students who receive a financial aid award are more likely to
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151
choose the institution that made the financial aid offer (Hossler,
2000). Hossler (2000) believes that financial aid has a
psychological affect on students. They see that an institution has
given them money and believe that the college/university wants
them. The research mentioned above has shown that financial
aid has a significant impact on students’ enrollment decisions.
This makes it easier for an institution to form its student body
with students who are likely to succeed at the school.
The Wingate University Situation
Enrollment research is necessary at Wingate University
because in recent years the number of applicants and thus the
number of undergraduate matriculants are increasing. Fall 2008
was the first time in Wingate University’s history that the
admissions office has put applicants on a waiting list. Because
the university must now start to select whom it admits, research
on these applicants can help make this decision a little easier.
Wingate University, just like all other schools, wants to admit
and consequently enroll students who will ultimately be
successful at the college. Research on which applicants become
matriculants and then which matriculants are likely to be the
most successful can help Wingate University to attract the right
students. Wingate University also has a long term goal to
incrementally reduce its discount rate. As the university
becomes more selective, it should be able to increase the average
percentage of tuition that the students pay (or reduce the average
discount rate) because demand is greater. Since this summer
research project creates models that can be used to predict an
entering class, the admissions department will know in advance
generally how many matriculants the school can expect in the
fall. As a result, admissions personnel will know early on if they
need to start being more or less selective in whom they admit. If
they can be more selective, then they will also have an
opportunity to decrease the discount rates given to students
(which is the same as increasing price) since the demand for a
spot at the university is greater than the supply. These predictive
models needed to be produced so that Wingate University could
forecast the demand for its undergraduate spots and thus make
these financial aid decisions.
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Data
Data collected from the 2007 and 2008 applicant pools
were used to model enrollment decisions at Wingate University
because using these most recent years would ensure that the
models be as up-to-date as possible and would also set a baseline
for comparison to later years once a revised General Education
Curriculum is instituted. While applicants’ enrollment decisions
can also be affected by the economy, trends in social behavior,
and other time sensitive factors, the researchers chose only to
include in their predictive models the twelve factors routinely
collected by admissions staff. Enrollment decisions for each
color group were investigated subject to the following variables:
Instate Residency (IS), Out-of-state residency (OS), Female (F),
Male (M), White ethnicity (W), Non-white ethnicity (NW),
Declared major (D), Undeclared major (U), SAT Verbal score
(SAT-V), SAT Math score (SAT-M), Unweighted High School
GPA (UW GPA), and Effective Family Contribution (EFC) from
students’ Free Applications for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
Enrollment for the 2007 applicant pool was recorded as
a “0” or “1” based upon actual class attendance at the beginning
of the fall semester. The 2008 pool had to be treated differently
since the researchers analyzed the data before the start of the
2008 fall semester. Enrollment for the 2008 applicants was
coded based on whether the student paid his deposit. The 2008
pool had to be repeatedly updated with newly admitted
applicants and the applicants’ statuses (whether they had paid
their deposits or withdrawn after they were admitted). The 2008
data used for the analysis contains the applicants and statuses
from the middle of July 2008. The researchers concluded that
this should be sufficient for accurate modeling since there should
be only a few updates to the 2008 applicant pool after mid-July.
However, the researchers do plan to update the 2008 enrollment
statuses based on actual attendance at the start of the semester
after that information becomes available.
Methodology
The 2007 and 2008 applicant pools were first coded for
the enrollment variable. Each pool was sorted by “status,” which
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153
helps to determine whether a student plans to enroll or not. The
status of each applicant can be “AD”: admitted, “AC”:
application complete, “DE”: denied, “WP”: withdrawn after
paid, “WA,” withdrawn after admitted, “HD”: held (these
students were eventually denied), “WB”: did not complete
application, or “PD”: paid. The Wingate researchers deleted the
applicants with statuses of “DE” and “HD” since the focus of the
analysis is on identifying variables that best predict which
students will decide to enroll after being admitted. The thinking
was that denied students were not given a choice to enroll. The
applicants with a status of “PD” were coded “1” for enrollment,
and the ones with any other status were given a code of “0” for
non-enrollment. Thus the enrollment variable is binary since it
has only two options. The 2007 applicants were actually
checked against the fall semester grades in order to ensure
correct enrollment coding.
To conduct pertinent hypothesis tests, the 2007 and 2008
applicant pools were first separated into their financial aid color
groups. Each color corresponds to a different percentage of need
funded, and blocks within each color specify a dollar amount of
merit-based aid to be given to the student. The color groups are
determined by a student’s SAT Total score and Unweighted
High School GPA, which is shown by a grid used by the
Admissions Department (see Appendix 1a for 2007 chart and
Appendix 1b for 2008 grid). Therefore, the researchers first
sorted each applicant pool by UW GPA and then by SAT Total
score in order to assign each applicant the appropriate color
(grey, orange, blue, yellow, purple, red, or green). The next step
was to cut and paste the applicants of each color group into their
own Excel workbooks. From there, each color group was
dissected into each variable analyzed, as listed in the data
section. Thus, each color group had worksheets for IS, OS, F,
M, W, NW, D, U, SAT-V, SAT-M, UW GPA, and EFC.
After each applicant pool was coded, updated, and
dissected, the 2007 and 2008 data sets were then combined in
order to perform the analysis. Using the past two years ensured
that the data was current and also reduced the risk of including
variables that might be significant only for a particular applicant
pool. The Data Analysis Plus tool, which can be added to
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Microsoft Excel using a basic statistics CD, was used to perform
z-tests and chi-squared tests on the data. The researchers wanted
to figure out which factors affect enrollment for each color
group, so significance testing was used. Z-tests were used for
the factors with only two distinguishing levels, such as
residency, gender, race, and major. For example, the proportion
of declared oranges that enrolled was compared to the proportion
of undeclared oranges that enrolled using a z-test for two
proportions with a hypothesized difference of zero (this z-test
can be seen in Appendix 2b). The researchers consistently used
two-tailed z-tests with a significance level of 0.05. The factors
with more than two levels had to be analyzed using chi-squared
tests since more than two proportions needed to be compared.
These factors were SAT-V, SAT-M, UW GPA, and EFC. To be
specific, a chi-squared test of a contingency table was used since
the researchers were comparing more than two populations
(Keller & Warrack, 2003). Each variable with more than two
values was split into multiple ranges. For example, the oranges
were grouped according to SAT-V scores that were less than or
equal to 400, between 410 and 450, between 460 and 500,
between 510 and 550, between 560 and 600, and greater than or
equal to 610. The proportions of 0s and 1s in these six ranges
were then computed, and a contingency table was created from
this data (see Appendix 2b-f). Each range was treated as a
separate population, and that is why it is called comparing more
than two populations. The chi-squared test was then performed
on this contingency table.
Both the z-test and the chi-squared test compute a pvalue that shows if there is a significant difference between the
proportions. A significance level of 0.05 was used for both
kinds of tests, so if the p-value associated with any comparison
was smaller than 0.05, then the researchers concluded that there
was a significant difference between the proportions or some of
the proportions. If the p-value of a chi-squared test was
significant, the researchers looked back at the sample
proportions to see which ones most likely differed significantly.
In some cases, if similar proportions could be grouped together
in order to combine some of the ranges, additional testing was
performed to see where the differences existed. All of this
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155
hypothesis testing was used to figure out which variables to put
into the predictive models for each color. If there were
significant differences between the proportions for the values of
a factor, then that variable could be used to predict enrollment
and should be included in that color’s model. However, if for
example, the proportion of 1s for the declared oranges is not
significantly different from the proportion of 1s for the
undeclared oranges, then major (declared/undeclared) would not
be a variable put into the model to predict enrollment for orange
applicants. At least eight significance tests were performed for
each color group (grey, orange, blue, yellow, purple, red, and
green). All of the z-tests and chi-squared tests performed on the
oranges can be seen in Appendix 2(a-g), and the tests performed
on the purples can be seen in Appendix 3(a-d). These
significance tests were also performed on the other colors, but
for the sake of space, their significant variables are just listed in
the “Results and Recommendations” section.
Modeling
Thus, the research team identified the sets of variables
that appeared most significant to the enrollment decisions for
applicants within each color group and then used these to
produce predictive models. These models will be used to
simulate the number of students in the applicant pool who will
enroll at Wingate University. Since the data sets for each color
group are different, it is not surprising that the key predictive
variables for each group differ also. However, no color groups
consistently evidenced increasing or decreasing probabilities of
enrollment based upon higher values of any of the quantitative
variables (SAT-V, SAT-M, UW GPA, or EFC). Thus, the key
predictor variables tended to be binary based on either
demographic factors (male vs. female, declared vs. undeclared,
etc.) or cut-offs for the quantitative factors (SAT-M >= 560, UW
GPA <=3.1, etc.) The variables that were the most significant
for a particular color group became the independent variables for
that model. Inclusion of key predictor variables in a final model
was based upon establishing significant (with p-value less than
0.10) coefficients within the model.
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A variety of regression models were compared for each
color group. The researchers considered logistic multiple
regression, probit multiple regression, and regular multiple
regression models for subsets of key predictor variables to most
accurately describe the 0-1 enrollment decision by applicants in
each group. The logistic regression models generally provided
the best fits for the applicant pool data that was analyzed.
Logistic regression is a technique that fits a 0-1 response
function with a tilted S-shaped curve. The technique involves
logarithmic transformation of enrollment proportions for data in
each of the subsets defined by the possible values of the
independent 0-1 variables. Producing these models required as
much art as science. For each color group, dozens of models
were tested with different subsets of key variables in order to
find the best predictive model. However, only the best model for
each group has been retained for presentation (see Appendix 2hk for the modeling process for the orange students and Appendix
3e-g for the purple modeling process).
Results and Recommendations
The results of this research are summarized here. The
average enrollment rates and key variables used for each color
group are as follows:
∙ GREY students matriculated at an average rate of 29.7%. Outof-state, SAT-M <= 450, and UW GPA <= 2.5 are the significant
factors used in the grey model.
∙ ORANGE students matriculated at an average rate of 18.1%.
Male, Non-white, UW GPA >= 3.1, 460 <= SAT-M <= 550, and
SAT-M >= 560 are the significant factors used in the orange
model.
∙ BLUE students had an average enrollment rate of 19.5%. SATM <= 550 and SAT-V <= 450 are the factors used in the blue
model.
∙ YELLOW students enrolled at an average rate of 17.7%, and
the factors used in the yellow model are SAT-V <= 500, UW
GPA >=3.2, White, and Out-of-state.
∙ PURPLE students matriculated at an average rate of 19.9%.
The significant factors used in the purple model are Declared and
Submitted FAFSA.
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∙ RED students had an average matriculation rate of 20.9%. UW
GPA >= 3.7 and submitted FAFSA are the significant factors for
the red model.
∙ GREEN students enrolled at an average rate of 28.0%, and
there were no significant factors used in the green model.
The average rates of enrollment for the color groups are
in chart form in Appendix 4. The first chart is the proportions
from the 2007 data, the second is from the 2008 data, and the
third is from the 2007 and 2008 data combined. The blocks with
high enrollment proportions (>= 30%) are “hot zones” and are
colored orange. The blocks with low enrollment proportions (<=
15%) are “cold zones” and are colored blue. These “hot and
cold zones” can help the Wingate University admissions
personnel know right away if a certain applicant is in a
classification that historically enrolls with a high, medium, or
low proportion. This can be useful for making a variety of
admission decisions, allocating financial aid, and performing
further research on matriculants.
One recommendation the researchers made while doing
this research was to change the color groups in the financial aid
chart. Appendix 1a shows the chart used for the 2007 applicants
(the applicants applying for fall 2007). The color groups
correlate with the dollar amount of scholarship awarded.
However, these dollar amounts were adjusted after the research
performed in the summer of 2007, but the colors were not
adjusted as well. Therefore, the chart used for the 2008
applicants (Appendix 1b) does not correlate the colors with the
dollar amount of merit-based aid. This was found while doing
the summer 2008 research, so the colors were changed for the
financial aid chart for the 2009 applicants (Appendix 1c). Now
many more color groups are used, but each color signifies a
certain dollar amount of merit-based aid.
Future Study
The models created in this study can now be used in
computer-aided simulation in order to find the probability that an
applicant will matriculate. The admissions office can take their
applicant pool and simulate which of these students will enroll
using the predictive models for each color group. The
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researchers plan to predict the fall 2009 entering class using
these models. This way, Wingate University will be able to
forecast the size and characteristics of an entering class before
the students actually send their deposits in. Such a forecast helps
with producing budgets, housing students, allocating financial
aid awards, and making further admissions decisions.
In addition, the summer 2007 research can be combined
with this summer research project to predict how well new
students will do. The research performed in the summer of 2007
produced models to forecast a student’s number of semesters at
Wingate University and his exit GPA upon graduation. As a
result, an applicant’s characteristics can be used to predict
whether he will enroll at Wingate University and if so, how
many semesters he will stay and his exit GPA. This information
can then be used to determine if Wingate University is allocating
its financial aid money in a way that attracts the students who
will most likely succeed at the school.
Conclusion
The results of this summer 2008 research project not
only helped Wingate University to investigate the characteristics
of the applicants who decide to subsequently enroll, but it will
also aid the admissions department in years to come in
forecasting its entering class as soon as possible. This is
becoming increasingly important for Wingate University since
the number of applicants to its undergraduate college is
increasing. Wingate University is thus able to be more selective
and even put students on a waiting list. The predictive models
produced in this summer project combined with the ones from
the 2007 research will help the university determine exactly how
selective it can be and which applicants it should admit. One of
the Wingate University’s admissions department’s goals is to be
able to reduce the average discount rate on the tuition. As long
as the university can stay competitive and selective and be able
to forecast the demand for its educational services using these
predictive models, it should be able to achieve this goal.
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References
Armacost, R.L., & Wilson, A.L. (2002). Three analytical
approaches for predicting enrollment at a growing
metropolitan research university. Retrieved August 19,
2008, from http://eric.ed.gov
Braunstein, A., McGrath, M., & Pescatrice, D. (1999).
Measuring the impact of income and financial aid offers
on college enrollment decisions. Research in Higher
Education, 40(3), 247-259.
Hossler, D. (2000). The role of financial aid in enrollment
management. New Directions for Student Services, 89,
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Premier database.
Hossler, D., Schmit, J., & Vesper, N. (1999). Going to College:
How social, economic, and educational factors influence
the decisions students make. Baltimore & London: John
Hopkins University Press.
Keller, G., & Warrack, B. (2003). Statistics for management and
economics (6th ed.). Australia: Thomson Brooks/Cole.
Khajuria, S. (2007). A model to predict student matriculation
from admissions data. Retrieved August 18, 2008, from
http://ww.ohiolink.edu
Paulsen, M.B. (1990). College choice: Understanding student
enrollment behavior. (ASHE-ERIC Higher Education
Report No.6). Washington, DC: The George Washington
University, School of Education and Human
Development.
Rampell, C. (2008, May 30). Colleges mine data to predict
dropouts: Computer analysis seeks to identify students at
risk. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 154(38).
Retrieved July 21, 2008, from http://chronicle.com
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Spaulding, R., & Olswang, S. (2005). Maximizing enrollment
yield through financial aid packaging policies. The
Journal of Student Financial Aid, 35(1), 27-38.
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Appendices
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