On Stephen King's Uses of Verisimilitude, Suspense and the Monster in Short Stories

It by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've been re-reading some of Stephen King's works to get a feel for his winning formula for story telling, and I've discovered that above all else, he is a master at the short story. One of his early influences, Edgar Allan Poe, wrote that the short story must create a "unity of effect," that each story should produce within readers one single emotional impact. Poe was skeptical of the novel, because he did not believe readers could sit through a story long enough to experience this single emotional effect. But, King, not one to share Poe's skepticism of the novel, found a way around this by separating all of his chapters into short stories, while still relating them to the larger story at hand. Though one might not like the subject matter of King's stories, or not like his seeming long-winded descriptions of minuscule events, he is nonetheless, a master at several literary techniques.

By definition, verisimilitude is the appearance of something being true or real. King is great at getting readers to believe in what he is showing them through vivid description and meaningful digression. He waits to show readers what they suspect is going to happen, by making them wade and wait through pages of digressive material. He uses "little drops of plot," as Alfred Hitchcock would call it, little bits of foreshadowing, to help elicit a mood of impending doom; but, he doesn't use too much, because he wants his Constant Reader to be surprised when he reveals the climactic spectacle. These long digressions are necessary to build up the suspense. The more King makes readers wait, the more he lures you into his web of exhilarating fear.

In his novel, It, for example, the first chapter introduces the main problem that there is a psycho-serial-killer clown on the loose. Instantly, with the images of clowns and carnivals, readers are transported into a mood of the carnivalesque and grotesque (Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes). The monster is introduced in an ambiguous way that makes readers wonder whether he is actual or only imagined. Here, King shows his mastery at layering verisimilitude. Readers aren't sure what this monster of personified fear is, whether it exists in the three-dimensional world or whether it is just imagined. Since it isn't really resolved, it must exist in both. King probably chose the image of a wicked clown, because so many people remember being terrified of clowns, a common childhood phobia. He chose a common childhood fear, maybe even one of his own, and magnified it (hyperbole) in order to navigate the maze of internal conflict, like Theseus navigating the labyrinth of his own mind, to kill the Minotaur (a personification of his internal fears).

As I write my own novel, I keep King's lessons in mind. I write the novel in rough draft, outline form. I just get the overall story down and separate it into chapters or scenes. Each scene is a short story in and of itself, related to the overall story arc (related to the theme). Every morning (yeah right), I work on clearing off the window pane (so to speak), getting more of the story down, letting the layers unfold, much like a painter moves from general shapes to specific details (inductively).

On mornings when the story isn't pouring forth for whatever reason (probably due to sheer laziness), when I'm ambivalent about what to write (i.e. where to take the characters, what to permit, what to veto, making sure all of their decisions relate to the overall story), I've discovered that if the overall story is not coming forth, I can work on an earlier part of the story, "purpling up" the prose. This helps to add thematic layers of depth to the story.

Once I get to a point where earlier chapters feel "finished," "integrated" and "whole," (aka complete), I start writing the next series of short stories, either of another novel or little worlds of their own. It's important to not get lost in the quagmire of a long-winded novel, but, if you use this method, walking along the tightrope of theme, which must be King's method (I don't know, since I haven't asked him and I can't read his mind), you begin to see that all of these stories are related in one way or another. The characters are personifications of one's own internal conflicts and dreams. It's magic. One way to keep the scales on your wings is to master the short story.

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Darker Than You Think

Darker Than You Think by Jack Williamson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one heck of a scary book. There is a type of verisimilitude that leads readers to believe that shape-shifting is a definite possibility. Though I enjoyed the story, while reading, I wondered how the author kept his sanity, not slipping into the reality he was building. Maybe he did.

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Young Goodman Brown

Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Holy Bible, which was probably the most important text to the Puritans, declares that a woman is “saved through childbearing–if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety” (1 Timothy 9-15). Nathaniel Hawthorne, a nineteenth century romantic writer, explored the theme of salvation by faith in his short story, “Young Goodman Brown.” The story contains literary elements, such as symbol and personification that help to elucidate the process of faith and its subsequent process of sanctification that might have been in the mindscape of some Puritan men and women.
Sanctification is a religious term that means “to consecrate, to make holy or to purify.” It is a sort-of spiritual cleansing, a washing away of a person’s sins after accepting as truth the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ. Today, when a person becomes a Christian, he or she takes a sacred oath to obey the laws of God. This is how the Christian proves that he loves God. In return, God blesses the faithful Christian with His love, which is an overpowering force of goodness within the heart of the Christian. It is a heavenly state wherein the faithful is “heaved up” into the realm of happiness. Because of his or her faith, the trusting Christian becomes a servant ready to reap the rewards of providence. Presumably, the Puritans believed the same process to be an important part of their religious life. Without faith, sanctification could not be possible.
In “Young Goodman Brown,” a Puritan husband meets an ambiguous character in the wood, who forces him to question the fidelity of his wife, Faith. In this work, Hawthorne, a man who persistently reflected upon his own ancestor’s dealings with the devil (he was the great-great grandson of a judge who persecuted women for witchcraft) seems to explore the process of sanctification by which one comes to have faith in a higher power and how one can flee the bondage of sin.
The Puritans were a group of people trying to escape oppressive Anglican persecution. One of their points of contention was that (wo)mankind can attain salvation by having faith in God and that salvation did not come through works or by the sanction of men, (an institution such as the Church of England). They believed The Geneva Bible was the divinely inspired Word of God, which meant that everything in it was the absolute truth. Therefore, it is consistent to assume the Puritans in Hawthorne’s works believed that “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrew 11:1). In other words, in order to be considered a faithful servant of God, a Puritan such as Goodman Brown must not waver between belief and disbelief. The very color of his name, neither black nor white, but somewhere in between seems to suggest he is in-between being faithful and unfaithful.
In this sense, Faith is a personification of the concept of biblical faith in “Young Goodman Brown.” It is the object with which Brown struggles. In the literal sense, Faith is the flesh and blood wife of Mr. Brown. She embodies everything he cares for, everything he loves. She is his wife. According to the Puritans, when a man and woman join in the sacrament of marriage, they become one flesh, one person; their identities merge. They have both committed to a bondage to one another, what the Bible calls “being yoked.” Though some may argue this kind of bondage to be imprisoning, most believing Christians know that this is a type of bondage that is merely restricting, built upon the Christian virtues of faith, hope and love.
In the figurative sense, Faith serves as a symbol to the biblical concept of faith, the assured confidence that God’s grace is real and a blessing conferred upon mankind for the redemption of sin. It isn’t a prison but a paradise where the walls of love protect inhabitants from the lures and snares of evil. Unfortunately, though, for those who waver, like Brown, they have not yet found the assurance needed to be considered one of God’s elect for salvation. Instead of trusting in God, the waverer is in a sense, still in bondage to distrust and doubt. In modern evangelical terms, he is still in bondage to sin, the Devil’s weapon of manipulation.
The theme of this literature course was to focus on “captivity narratives,” wherein Puritan “wom[e]n st[oo]d passively under the strokes of evil, awaiting rescue by the grace of God” (Kirby) as if there should be some question to the Puritan avenue of salvation. In “Young Goodman Brown,” the husband, after seeing his wife’s ribbons in the woods, seems to question his “Faith.” He seemingly “falls” to evil within the woods. He doesn’t literally fall unto the weight of gravity per se, but the gravity of sin. He falls out of heavenly faith, that place of “heaved up happiness and contentment” into the hellish realm of doubt and despair.
Upon looking up the etymology of the word evil in The American Heritage Dictionary, one notes that evil comes from the Old English word yfal, which one might say evolved into “I fall” or “I fell,” which phonetically sounds like “evil.” For instance, the word fell also comes from Old English fellan or fellen, which today means felon, “one who commits felonies” or “an evil person.” When applied to Brown, the “felony” he commits is merely falling from faith into the sin of doubt.
It is interesting to note the article by Paul Hurley. He states that some readers might infer the man in the woods to be the devil: “I believe the reader has every right to wonder if the townspeople are actually cohorts of the Devil” (Hurley 2). If so, the kind of evil in Brown’s mind must be a kind of tempting for him to attend some kind of dark gathering in the dark places or back of his mind, whether in reality or through some dark subconscious fantasy. “The man of integrity [faith] walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out” (Proverbs 10:9). It seems Brown’s excursion into the wood may be apt, especially when Hawthorne writes that Brown “passed a crook on the road” (Hawthorne 540).
If merely fantasy, one might say Brown’s thoughts are wanderings through a mind scape of dark caverns of his own discord and distrust. He is wondering about the fidelity of his wife, really projecting onto her his own infidelities. “His [Brown’s] visions are the product of his suspicion and distrust,” (Hurley 2) which indicates that he has not only questioned his wife, Faith but also the grace of God. Just as the devil was cast out of heaven and fallen to the earth, and as Adam and Eve fell from the Garden of Eden, it seems the point of Hawthorne’s narratives is to explore the process of moving from trust to distrust, and to show how a person may fall to the temptations of evil and lose faith. Hawthorne includes much of this in his text.
In the beginning of the story, Brown and his Faith depart. She pleads for him to stay home, because “A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts that she’s afeard of herself sometimes” (Hawthorne 540). Brown then asks her, “ . . . dost thou doubt me already, and we but three months married?” (Hawthorne 540). Both of these comments seem to foreshadow the wanderings of the mind from faith to doubt. The comments seem to allude to man’s general tendency to slip into sin, to take for granted the truth of salvation in faith. Then, as Brown turns to see Faith watch him leave, Brown thinks to himself, “Poor little Faith,” (Hawthorne 540) as if to say to himself in guilt, “I have such little faith (in God),” whereby “his heart smote him” (Hawthorne 540). It is that term, “smote” that indicates the heavy descent of man into sin, wherein “Goodman Brown felt justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose” (Hawthorne 540).
In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne claimed to write “the truths of the human heart.” Yet, “the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. I, the Lord, search the heart and examine the mind to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve” (Jeremiah 17: 9-10). But, the heart of Goodman Brown is mistaken; it is fallen into the felony of sin. The very name “Goodman Brown” seems to be an anagrammatic allusion to the blasphemous taking of the Lord’s name in vain. Moreover, the name “Good Dame” is also an allusion to the same cursing of God. It seems Hawthorne is merely alluding to what lurks beneath the mind of mankind, clouded in the sub layers of language.
When Brown enters the wood, he begins to imagine fearful things: “‘What if the devil himself should be at my very elbow!’” (Hawthorne 540). It is this fearful imagining that seems to have conjured the devil in Brown’s presence, whether mentally or physically. Hawthorne seems to show that it is at the crucial point wherein fear replaces faith that mankind begins to fall. When Brown passes a “crook of the road,” (Hawthorne 540) Hawthorne is writing ambiguously, stating in one sense the “crook” is a bend in the path, but also a “felon” of sin, the devil. When Brown notices the man dressed in “grave and decent attire,” (Hawthorne 541), again the play on words indicates a deeper level of darkness in the character on the road.
When the old man, who is presumably the devil states that Brown is late, the latter responds, “Faith kept me back awhile” (Hawthorne 541) indicating that faith in God was what delayed Brown’s fall to the devil’s grip. All things considered, Hawthorne’s short story is really an allegorical tale of mankind’s tendency to fall to evil. It is the call of the elect to decide whether to allow their faith in the things unseen to keep them in the arms of Christ or to let the devil of doubt deter us from the Lord.


Works Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Young Goodman Brown.” Concise Anthology of American Literature, 2nd Edition. Ed. George McMichael. Macmillan Publishing Company: New York, 1985.

Hurley, Paul J. “Young Goodman Brown’s Heart of Darkness.” American Literature. Vol. XXXVII, No. 4. January, 1966, pp. 410-19.

“Proverbs.” The Holy Bible. The New International Version. International Bible Society: New York, 1984.

“Jeremiah.” The Holy Bible. The New International Version. International Bible Society: New York, 1984.

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The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Gothic short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” is about an artist’s fetal development within a room, symbolic of her extra-embryonic membrane (amniotic sac). This room is bounded by a patterned yellow wallpaper, indicative of an “amniotic fluid.” The boundary lining the room of this “haunted house” (Gilman 576) is a translucent portal into the realm of intuition, imagination, and artistic magic. The narrator’s conflict stems from the baby-like artistic impulses, within her self, and her weakened will power to give birth to them. Hindering the gestation transformation are numerous hyper-analytical attitudes from people around her, which cause her to worry about her own state of sanity. Instead of having a fiery-red, energetic will power steeped in motherly intuition, the woman suffers from an “hysteria” of Gothic images. In analyzing these shadows of madness and imaginative creation, she attempts to abort them, because she confers way too much faith and trust in a reasonable, objective patriarchy.
The gestating artist within the narrator is prevented from crossing the birth canal of enchantment and imagination, because the masculine thinkers, allegedly taking care of her, prevent the new woman from birthing past any point of reason. Like the stages of embryo-logical development, gradually and eventually, the narrator’s umbilical tug-of-war with the mashy, mushy web of fluid uncertainty (the yellow wall paper), constructed by the egoistic Mother of Reason, forces her to split into another Being, a woman who “creeps all around the garden” (Gilman 585). This new woman is a theriomorphic entity who helps the narrator rrrip through the amniotic fluid of the Mother’s womb, thus birthing a baby Imagination. Near the end of the story, the woman splits into numerous selves. This embryo-logical process, known as differentiation, is a development of cells and tissue types. It is essential for the maturation of the developing fetus. Eventually, a rebirth liberates and actualizes the woman’s Self from the amniotic pool of merely potential creation.
The story ends with the narrator unlocking the gates to her magical imagination by tearing at the amniotic sac. However, just like during an actual birth, the embryo logical induction she traverses to get there is quite painful. The room in which she resides is an oppressive one, for her imagination has gestated to maturity and now wants out. From the over-stimulation and bombardment of reason, via her faith in her physician-husband’s reasonable opinions, which includes “an intense horror of superstition” (Gilman 576), the woman constantly allows uncertainty to stifle the birthing process of creative growth. Her husband represents the stereotypical 19th century male whose predominant characteristic was to abuse the function of consciousness, reason. This function consistently controlled many weaker individuals, especially women, to their detriment; it weakened their own wills to creative power. “I wouldn’t have a child of mine, . . . live in such a room” (Gilman 581) the narrator admits with uncertainty of the fetal imagination inherent within. This weakened power to create, when she claims, “Your exercise depends on your strength” (Gilman 577) speaks of her attitude towards general health, but also of artistic development. She’s speaking of so-called “writer’s block,” though not entirely self-imposed, it comes from too much reason. It is like a mother who is unsure of her maternal instincts, and who may contemplate abortion. Eventually the narrator grows accustomed to the womb (room), “Perhaps because of the wallpaper,” (Gilman 580), and she slowly drifts into “hysteria.”
Hysteria comes from the Greek, hustera, which translates as “womb.” Doctors of the 19th century erroneously assumed that any abnormal displays of emotion were typically feminine aberrations, and could be cured through physical rest. However, the narrator shows the reader that this is not her diagnosis. She shows a gradual development of the wallpaper as a sort-of “morphogenesis,” the development of pattern and form, and for differentiation, the development of cell and tissue types. On the surface of the membrane (amniotic fluid/wallpaper) there are “bloated curves and flourishes . . . [that] go wadding up and down in isolated columns of fatuity” (Gilman 580). The bloated curves seem to be allusions to pregnancy, a fecundity of potential creation of which the narrator cannot be anymore full; it is also the womb of gestating creativity. Pregnant with artistic potentialities, but restrained by the chains of patriarchy, the narrator struggles to birth, to free herSelf from the Demonego of Reason.
Sort of like rain washing down a pane of glass, or the multicolored sheen in a filmy soap bubble, the yellow wallpaper is actually a slippery sheath separating the narrator’s ego from her subconscious, imaginative creativity. The images that she can see in the wallpaper are coming from her breeeathing subconscious; they are a developing fetus in its developmental stages of growth. For instance, when an actual pregnant woman sees an image of her developing fetus through a sonogram, she may see an alien-like creature with a reptilian spine, and huge bug-eyes. Yet, if the expecting mother could not “see” or “envision,” within her own magical imagination, what that little “alien’s” potential maturation will be upon birth, then she would be uncertain of whether to abort before it is born.
An abortion of imaginative potential is the criminality of reason. Reason can be just as bad as a lack of magic, or an imagination of darkness. Readers should discern that there is nothing wrong with this expository of her intuition, her magical imagination. Every great artist ought agree, when the material world is overcome, the spiritual world takes hold, a new realm of mysticism is invoked. The problem with the narrator is her distrust in her own imaginative powers; she places too much trust in the world of materiality and reason. Furthermore, she has no will power to direct and control her own imagination. One key factor to being an artist is the power of the Will. If one allows the imagination to passively exist, without any control via the Will, then the imagination could dwell upon various sorts of negativity and darkness. “I wish John would take me away from here!” (Gilman 581). She summons John, because he personifies reason, and reason is a safe and secure place, away from the penumbra that takes umbrage on the artist with a weakened will.
The narrator is deceived into thinking reason will save her from this slippery slope into “hysteria.” Reason tells her that the imaginative realm is foolish; furthermore, the reasonable doctor tells her not to write, nor to create; she tries to convince herself into ignoring her imagination. But, she can’t; those images on the wall are dying to be born. To make matters worse, she believes the patriarchal authorities of reason, for she has “spent hours in trying to analyze” (Gilman 584) the paranormality in the wallpaper, for “It strikes me . . . as a scientific hypothesis” (Gilman 583) that the images are a psychosis. The doctor is a sort-of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who assists people in committing suicide; he provides the yellow toadstool fungal treatment of Göetia; otherwise, knows as black magic. He doesn’t know to give her the creamy succulent mushroom of angelic magic, whereupon she shall be reborn. As a dutiful wife, though, she puts all her faith and identity in her husband, (feminists would argue the sole and central struggle in the 19th century). As an artist, though, she is going mad for desire to emanate her imagination.
The narrator, as well as the author, could have saved themselves from “those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin” (Gilman 577), if they realized courage is all one needs in embracing the will to internalized power. There is no concept of “artistic sin,” except the abortion of a work in progress. In the world of the magical imagination, freedom from materiality is what liberates the soul, and hands over control to the artist magician. If the narrator only had a friendly, kindred spirit inform her that the only cure for this diseased hyper-rationality is the magical imagination, then she might have been spared the dread of the “curves [that] suddenly commit suicide . . . [that] plunge off . . . [and] destroy themselves” (Gilman 577). The yellow wallpaper is a weakened, or jaundiced will power to create.
Everything in the end is destroyed. The Demiurge (God) giveth and the Demiurge taketh away. There is no point in fearing this inevitable “truth.” If monsters reveal their ghoulish grins and sinister snickers, then one should allow them birth, then redirect the will into a transformation of light-blasting angels. It’s as simple as that last sentence. Demons change into angels; now, if one has difficulty understanding this process, it stems from too much dissection. Every human being witnesses these demonic forms within, in one form or another, for they are Archetypal forces born in the psyche. If anyone denies this fact, they are lying to themselves, and one ought not to trust them until they admit, for in them reason has elicited its own black magic superstition; they have been fooled into THINKING demons are not real. It is as Goethe once masterfully put it, “We are never deceived, but we deceive ourselves.” If the narrator only learned to watch the contorted faces, listen to their echoing screams, then redirect her will, she would have seen they eventually subside, for they too are fated to destruction. Once one realizes this she WILL become a magician, and WILL not be not afraid, and her WILL to creative power WILL grow. Doth thou seest how the WILL of the magician determines the course of the future?
Of course, the rationalist will reveal another deception that mental institutions are full of deranged people, and that “hysteria” was a legitimate disease. One conjecture asks, “who here is really insane?” The doctor who concocted the notion eventually recanted his postulations after reading Gilman’s story. The doctor was practicing a subtle voodoo. Even though he wore a suit and tie, and spoke the great line, he was practicing Göetia.
Yeah, though she walks through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the narrator should fear and WILL no evil, for she is the shining light that illuminates the darkness. Yet, if she continues to exclusively listen to reason, which deceives her into thinking the images are not real, then she will distrust her own magical powers, and eventually spray a confetti of flesh along that jaundiced wall. Mostly, this confusion stems from a persistent uncertainty, a constantly second guessing of one’s intuitions. Dr. C. G. Jung once stated that “if you don’t take a hint from life, it will eventually hit you.” He also used a term from the Greek, enantiodromia, which is the eventual lashing out of one’s shadow, or dark forces, caused by the suppression of a weakened function of consciousness; in the narrator’s case, reason suppressed intuition. A question to ask the skeptical rationalist is that if the images in the wallpaper are not real, then why are they present and affecting the woman’s Reality, hmm?
As a recurring motif in Gothic Romanticism, the “mad woman in the attic” is also seen in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, in Bertha Mason Rochester. Similarly, in Bronte’s story, the woman lashes out of the room, yet in a more heroic manner. She actually attempts to kill her captive, Mr. Rochester, her husband, by setting his bed and room on fire. The Gothic tradition is a wonderful exploration of this conflict twixt reason and the intuitive, magical imagination. Various rationalists wholly distrust the Gothic tradition or Dark Romanticism, because they accuse those writers of “triteness,” their poor use of language and adolescent images of gore. However, these so called scholars do not realize their own guilt of committing the same slow homicide, and eventually suicide. As the doctor and the husband in Gilman’s story, they atrophy their own magical imaginations by teaching a distrust for such “intense horror[s] of superstition” (Gilman 576). Furthermore, they may assume any interest in this “genre” is suspect, because it may seem sensationalistic. Condemning any student with an interest in the Gothic is akin to condemning an FBI profiler of studying serial snipers; or it is akin to condemning priests who study Demonology.
Well, ironically, horrible superstition is what keeps many people sane; that’s why there is such a vast market for that type of fiction (Gothic Romanticism). It is more than a commercial art full of trite, horrific language and adolescent images of gore. The Goth-Romantic is a psychotherapeutic remedy for people like the artistic narrator in Gilman’s story. By showing others that one may sanely experience those paranormal images in the wallpaper, she is telling people, with a kindred spirit, to not be afraid. The wall paper is merely an amniotic membrane separating the individual from the uncertainty of one’s imagination, which ultimately is the darkness of the mother’s womb of pure Creation. Ultimately, Gilman shows artists, especially women, how to birth themselves from the demonegos of the rational, material world, and how to give life to an emanation from within. While in the womb, a fetus grows, but it is the baby’s will that decides, in accordance with the mother’s pushing forces of power, that emanate the final masterpiece into the world.

Works Cited

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. Ed. Ann Charters. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003.

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Hopscotch

Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First of all, as a disclaimer, this essay sets forth a rather controversial interpretation of Julio Cortazar’s novel, Hopscotch. After reading and re-reading this text, it becomes increasingly clear this story is mostly concerned with alchemy. Alchemy is a medieval philosophy having as its asserted aims the transmutation of base metals into gold, the discovery of panacea, and the preparation of the elixir of longevity; it is the method of searching for “the philosopher’s stone.” Though the practice of alchemy will be further developed later on, one must consider a quote by Gregorovius, one of the novel’s characters, who states, “My alchemy is much less subtle than what all of you practice; all that interests me is the philosopher’s stone” (Cortazar 181). Gregorovius is referring to the same philosopher’s stone of the ancient and medieval past. While in dialogue with Horacio, he speaks of “Something human . . . I suspect that Lucia [light] must have told you [about it] . . . you’ve got to see what kind of mileage people can get from the word human. But why didn’t La Maga [the magic] stay with you since you glow all over with humanity?” (Cortazar 182).

For the uninitiated, this passage may seem rather obscure or unimportant. However, for students of the ancient mystery schools and the occult, this passage is clearly an allusion to the “hu” that is heard by those who’ve transfigured into an Illuminati. It is a sound heard by those who’ve gone through the Ægyptian Rite of Passage, called the Secret of the Phoenix, wherein one fasts for forty days in order to eventually shed his material flesh and become a Being of Light ☼.

The “hu” is an intense internal sound that is actually heard by the transfigured individual caused by superconductivity of electro-luminescence. This is a scientific fact, which Cortazar’s novel affirms to be a true phenomenon. Though he realizes that most uninitiated readers will interpret his text very superficially, by totally ignoring or rejecting the special meaning, he occults this sweeter secret with various allusion, misdirection, concealment and symbol. He knows, perhaps an initiate into the mystery schools himself, that uninitiates will not comprehend the factual reality of the Secret of the Phoenix. Therefore, throughout the novel he creates a character, Morelli, who as a self-reflective writer, consistently plays with the philosophical verity of reality and surreality. For instance, Morelli comments, “This body that I am has the pre-science of a state in which, as it denies itself as such, and as it simultaneously denies the objective correlative as such, its own consciousness would accede to a state outside the body and outside the world, which would be the true accession of being” (Cortazar 359). The underlying meaning behind Morelli’s remarks carry on the ten-thousand year quest for the philosopher’s stone. He affirms the science that man actually has an innate ability to transfigure into a being of light when he writes, “My body will be, not mine, Morelli, not I, the one who in 1950 has already putrefied in 1980, my body will be because behind that door of light . . . being will be something other than bodies and, than bodies and souls” (Cortazar 359-60). One must not interpret this statement as figurative, for this essay will show that this seemingly absurd phenomenon is an actual human condition, and perhaps a postmodern one that challenges preconceived notions about reality.

Much of the path to get to the transfiguration lay in the novel’s structure. When the narrator, not Morelli, states, “you forget that in order to get to Heaven you have to have a pebble and a toe” (Cortazar 214), he is alluding to the use of the Kabbalistic system of magical meditation. He is also referring to the philosopher’s stone, which has been called “the pebble,” or the chemical element the Ægyptians called “mfkzt.” This magical chemical is what is needed, along with the mental and spiritual preparation in order to transform. Considering the fact that Paris is a city that attracts many secret societies, perhaps Cortazar knew something of this chemical from his journeys to Europe.

Julio Cortazar was born in 1914 and died in 1984 in Brussel, Belgium, and educated in Argentina. He was an Argentine writer who became well-known for his experimental surrealist literature. In 1951, though, he exiled himself to Paris, because he disapproved of Juan Peron’s increasingly tyrannical style of government. It has been said that Cortazar’s writing is surreal in that he depicts two simultaneous realities in his work; one of these being an objective world full of “phantasms.” It is this other reality wherein Cortazar, like a bored and bemused god, throws his characters on a quest through obscure labyrinths and mazes seemingly of their own creation, only to see if they make it to a dimension of transcendence. The primary objective of these characters is to escape into another, more divine reality, a parallel universe, or an other dimension of Being. In Hopscotch, Horacio’s goals is to escape into the Heavenly “kibbutz of desire.”

Part I:
Hopscotch as Labyrinth

The labyrinthine journey through a maze is a theme. The maze is symbolic of this abstract journey, based on an ancient game of self-discovery via fantastic obstacles and dream-states. The metaphor used to communicate this journey is hopscotch. It is a game played on a pattern-chalked sidewalk. The pattern consists of several single squares or circles, which are often sequentially numbered. It begins when a player tosses an object (usually a rock) into the pattern, then hops into the pattern, careful not to skip the square containing the rock and to land without touching the lines in all the empty squares. Scholars believe the game may be as much as a thousand years old, based on the maze motif found among peoples in the iron age, and through which youth were required to walk during an initiation ceremony.

The game, hopscotch, may have begun in ancient Britain during the early Roman Empire, symbolizing a transformation in consciousness. The original courts were over 100 feet long and used for military training exercises. Roman children drew their own smaller versions in imitation of these soldiers, and this is how it evolved into the modern (post-modern) game. The object of the game is that each player should have a marker, a stone, which is symbolic of the necessary philosopher’s stone and the actual maze graphed upon the ground.

When the player reaches the end of the labyrinth (Heaven) the player is transfigured into a light being. “The squares open, the labyrinth unfolds . . . and [he] comes to the road leading to the kibbutz of desire . . . no longer rising up to Heaven . . . but walk[ing] along with the pace of a man on the same land of men towards the kibbutz far off there, but on the same level” (Cortazar 216). The narrator is describing the total transformation of the player into an Illuminati, a Being of Light, who is able to return to the material world where other men are, but in a different dimension, as a Being of Light.

Illuminati is a term used in the 15th century to signify adepts who possessed “light” from direct communication with a higher source. It has been associated with various occult groups such as the Rosicrucians and the Masons. Within these secret societies’, initiates undergo a labyrinthine journey through Kabbalistic meditation, while rising through a system of degrees. The Kabbalah serves a mental guide through this often confusing maze of transformation.

Part II:
Hopscotch as Kabbalah

In Cortazar’s novel, the reader becomes the hopscotch player who journeys into the Self via Kabbalah. Following the lead of one of Cortazar’s literary heros, Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), Kabbalah is the underlying structural model for much of his writing. Kabbalah is the mystical teaching of classical Judaism. It derives from the Hebrew word, Qabbalah, which means “that which is received,” and refers to a secret oral tradition handed down from teacher to pupil. The purpose of Kabbalah is to pursue enlightenment, to seek union with God via transfiguration. According to legend, God taught Kabbalah to angels, but subsequent to their fall from Heaven, the angels taught their secrets to Adam in order to provide humankind a way back to God--the celestial Home. This tradition eventually passed on to Noah, who initiated seventy Elders. Furthermore, eventually Kabbalah passed through Abraham, who after teaching his own sons, told them to travel throughout the world sharing these secrets to worthy initiates. Thus, in the Orient, the term for the Buddhist deity, Brahman, derives from the same word, Abraham or Abram, meaning “father.”

Much like the Yogic system of the Far East, Kabbalah is a system of meditation that depends heavily upon imagination. The earliest form of mystical literature is found in the tradition of the Merkavah (God’s Throne-Chariot). This refers to the chariot of the prophet, Ezekiel’s imaginal vision. The goal of a Merkavah mystic is to enter “the throne world,” which is reached after passing through seven heavenly mansions, similar to the labyrinth of hopscotch. The Merkavah-rider, or Traveler, then sends his soul upward to pierce the veil around the Merkavah throne. Along the way, though, the soul is assailed by evil demons and spirits, and often by one’s own negative equal, such as Olivera’s doppelganger, Traveler. To protect the Merkavah-traveler on his journey, the mystic must prepare magical talismans, sigils, seals, and recite incantations.

The historical origin of the true Kabbalah centers on a short book, Sefir Yetzirah (the Book of Creation). Its exact date is unknown, but it presents a discussion of cosmogony and cosmology, and sets forth the central structure of the Kabbalah proper. It states that God created the world by means of thirty-two secret paths of wisdom, which are the ten sefirot and the twenty two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The sefirot derive from the same origin as sapphire, which is a semi-precious stone that occurs as a transparent, blue variety of mineral corundum. Although sapphire is often applied to gem-quality varieties of corundum of all other colors, the true sapphire is a deep blue-purple, the best tint being the blue-purple the color of Kashmir blue. The sefirot are emanations by which all reality is structured. The first sephirah emanated from God, and the following from each other. The rest of the sefirot represent dimensions of space.

Kabbalistic practice drew upon the Merkavah practices in that it was ecstatic, had magical rituals, and had as primary techniques prayer, contemplation, and imaginal meditation. The magical power of words assumed the greatest importance. One need only read Borges’ story “Aleph” for an example of this. Some Kabbalists held that God was too exalted for people to comprehend. However, mystics could perceive God’s presence in the form of a divine fire or light, which is the first creation, Shekinah, God’s feminine presence (also the model for La Maga and Talita). The traveler seeks to unite with this feminine glory, just as Olivera initiates his journey with the question, “Would I find La Maga?” (Cortazar 3). The sefirot are attributes of God; they are energy emanations that are described by the names of God; and they are language that substitutes as metaphor for God. The sefirot form the central image of Kabbalistic meditation, the Tree of Life, which, as shown above is Cortazar’s metaphorical guide for this alchemical transformation of the electromagnetic soul.

Just like the child’s game, the Tree of Life shows the descent of the divine from Heaven (Kether), into the material world called Malkuth, and the path by which people can ascend to the divine while still in the flesh. Each sephirah is a level of attainment in knowledge; they are different magnifications of consciousness. The seven lower sefirot stand for Sovereignly, Foundation, Endurance, Majesty, Beauty, Loving-Kindness and Judgement. Each corresponds to seven energy centers located along the spine within the human body, and the top three–Understanding, Wisdom, and Crown (Humility)–are mystical steps to complete unification with God. Each sefirah is divided into four sections in which operate the Four Worlds constituting the cosmos: Atziluth, the world of the archetypes, from which are derived all forms of manifestation; Briah, the world of creation, in which archetypal ideas become patterns; Yetzirah, the world of formation, in which the patterns are expressed; and Assiah, the world of the material.

Through contemplation and meditation, a Merkavah-traveler ascends the Tree of Life. The sefirot are contemplated by mentally visualizing (imagining) them vibrating with color. The colors represent various qualities, but together with images of their corresponding Hebrew letters, also the divine names of God and the energy centers therein. God is understood to be more like an abode, a home, or a state of Being, rather than a person with binoculars looking down out of the big black blanket of space. Hebrew letters have corresponding attributes and numerical values which when meditated upon, unify the mind and body and bring the mystic into contact with higher planes of consciousness. To meditate on the letters, as Borges shows, is to meditate on all of Creation, and to achieve one with the whole of everything. One of the most important elements in Cortazar’s novel is a very important element in the attainment of the magic; it is found in the symbol of a little snake called the “kundalini.”

Part III:
Kundalini Serpent Club

In the novel, Horacio and his friends gather in a lounge called “The Serpent Club,” which is an obvious allusion to the magical energy force, kundalini. “Gregorovius had always enjoyed meetings of the Club, because it was not really a club at all in the strictest sense,” (Cortazar 45) but a secret magical society, which probably conducted Kabbalistic meditation and Tantric Yoga rituals. Derived from the Sanskrit, meaning “snake” or “serpent power,” kundalini is so-called, because it is a psycho-spiritual energy that is said to lie coiled, like a serpent, in the root base of the spine. It is a metaphor for the very energy of consciousness that remains dormant within the body. It can be aroused either through spiritual discipline, such as meditation, or spontaneously via certain psychedelic plants. Ultimately, kundalini stimulation brings about new states of consciousness, including mystical illumination.

The power of kundalini is enormous. Individuals who’ve experienced kundalini ecstasy say it is beyond description; it is the very essence of transcendence. Also called “liquid fire” or “liquid light,” kundalini is the solar principle in man’s consciousness. When it is activated, one sees various kinds of light, including an inner light that rests within the pineal gland. For example, when “[Olivera] saw . . . the faint purple light . . . when [Talita] came in, [Olivera] was in the midst of a shamanistic trance” (Cortazar 317). This passage seems to allude to an invocation of a higher ecstatic state of consciousness by stimulating the kundalini energy force.
Another manifestation of the kundalini is “ego-death.” For example, “La Maga was waiting for Horacio to kill her and that hers would be a 6 phoenix death, entry into the council of philosophers, that is to say, the discussions of the Serpent Club” (Cortazar 29). The death being referred to here is ego-death of the material person, otherwise known as ego-dissolution, via psychedelic attainment of the kundalini power, and the transfiguration into a Being of Light (an Illuminati). Used as a metaphor for death and resurrection, “The only possibility of [Horacio] coming together [with the feminine] would be if Horacio were to kill her while making love, where she could get together with him in Heaven [Kether and the kibbutz of desire]. . . and there the resurrection of the phoenix could take place” (Cortazar 30). The mystery of the phoenix myth predates ancient civilization. Yet, recent discoveries in chemistry and alchemy have shown the myth of the phoenix to be a very real phenomenon with incredible philosophical implications. But first, one must understand the Myth of the Phoenix, before exploring its science.

Part IV:
Borges and the “Sect of the Phoenix”

Assuming Cortazar was generally influenced by Jorge Luis Borges, and his story called “The Sect of the Phoenix,” mention is made of “the secret of the phoenix” in Hopscotch. In his story, Borges writes, “The most ancient sources . . . speak only of the People of the Custom or the People of the Secret. Gregorovius had already observed . . . that any mention of the Phoenix was extremely rare in oral language” (Borges 131). Borges is alluding to the process of (ego) death and resurrection that is attained when the kundalini, or “liquid fire” of consciousness, unites with the Divine Light of Being. This Secret, though, is a very important aspect of Kabbalistic meditation, and has been known by secret societies for millennia. Furthermore, Borges writes that “Another believes that, while we are asleep here, we are awake somewhere else, and thus every man is two men,” (Borges 13) which corresponds to Horacio’s comment that “while I’m writing . . . the feeling that I’ve left my body behind comes back” (Cortazar 399). This mind-body dualism explains more clearly the mirror relationship betwixt Horacio and his doppelganger, Traveler. The narrator refers to a time when Horacio speaks with Traveler about their synchronicity with each other: “Talking about dreams, we realized, almost at the same time, that certain structures we dream could be current forms of madness, if we could just continue for a while when we’re awake. When we dream we give free reign to our aptitude for madness. At the same time we suspect that all madness is a dream that has taken root” (Cortazar 399-400). Drams are important for understanding the secret that Borges and Cortazar allude to, for it is said that the dream world is the other dimension whither the soul transcends after becoming the Phoenix, the being of light.
In Ægyptian mythology, the phoenix is a bird that lived in the desert for 500 years and then consumed itself by fire, which later rose renewed from its ashes. This myth represents what happens to an individual who engages in the alchemical transfiguration from flesh into a Being of Light. This process can is achieved via magical meditation and a rare chemical compound, called by the voweless Ægyptian word mfkzt, “what is it?” Curious enough the Ægyptian Book of the Dead receives mention when Horacio “started to think about Ægyptian phrases . . . about Thoth, significantly the god of magic and the inventor of language .

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Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Joyce Carol Oates’s short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” is an allegorical horror story specifically aimed at sexually liberated females. Revealing her influence in Flannery O’Connor, Oates creates a monster--Arnold Friend–similar to “his father,” the Misfit in “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” Both creatures hold a surreal aura that preys upon the powerful energy of the feminine id. When the fragrance of the feminine id breezes past the nose of a demonic predator, it comes to conquer the sexually liberated female via sex or death. Or, as “Flannery O’Connor . . . calls the grotesque character ‘[wo]man forced to meet the extremes of [her or] his own nature’” (Holman 228).
Both stories deal with forces evoked from the subconscious. Oates’ story is about a teenage girl, Connie, realizing her own sexuality. She is forced to confront the sex demon battling to conquer her will. This sex demon–Arnold Friend-- is Connie’s developing id, which in Freudian theory, is the division of the psyche that is totally unconscious; id serves as the source of instinctual impulses and demands for immediate satisfaction of primitive needs, such as fighting, feeding, fearing or f***ing. An interesting intuition beckons the possibility that Oates named her main character Connie in order to serve as an allusion to Flannery O’Connor, or as a venerable nickname for an author much read, Flannery O’Connie. Nevertheless, there is a mathematical relation between the two stories, as well as the authors’ methods.
Generally speaking, in the Gothic allegory, the id manifests itself in familiar forms in order to deceive. For instance, the word id derives from the Latin, meaning “it,” which in Stephen King’s novel IT, id reveals itself as a wicked clown who preys upon young children. Most often id is some kind of evil archon in disguise, such as the devil. In O’Connor’s story, which is psychologically more complex than King’s, id is the Misfit, or the son of a devil, who returns to claim a debt owed to Him. In Oates’ story, id is Arnold Friend, who is also the devil, but seemingly the father of the other. In other words, because of Oates’ veneration and study of O’Connie, she may have borrowed the model of the Misfit to serve as the product of Connie’s black magick sexual agreement with Arnold Friend.
In O’Connie’s story, an epiphany occurs in time. Within the aggregate of the grandmother’s past and present, therein lay the Misfit--the grotesque product of Granny’s id. He seems to be in the form of her son, who is the illegitimate product of a sex-magick-pact she made with the Devil, years ago when she was young and promiscuous. Perhaps the Devil was Mr. Edgar Atkins Teagarden? Nevertheless, the id or the demon returns, after His temporary release from the fiery prison called Hell, and claims the soul that is indebted to the cosmic forces of evil; he instills death, a function of the libido, by killing the source of his own condemnation, his mother, who long ago gave herself to the paternal demon, Arnold Friend.
In Oates’ allegorical gothic tale, the id also manifests itself as libido. The libido is the psychic and emotional energy associated with instinctual biological drives. In the case of Connie, it is her increasing sexual desire or the manifestation of her sexual drive. Libido also comes from the Latin, meaning “desire.” Arnold Friend is purely motivated by this same extremity within Connie. If a reader remains within the aggregate of O’Connor’s story, and returns to an imaginary time when the grandmother was young, one will realize how the black-magick-sex-pact with the devil initially occurred. Imagine, Connie to be the grandmother many years before she encounters the Misfit. Of course, as Oates states, “the Gothic work’s metaphysics are Plato’s, and not Aristotle’s. There is a profound difference between what appears to be, and what is, and if you believe otherwise, the Gothicist has a surprise for you” (Oates 7). In other words, do not think of contradictions when reading these two tales back-to-back.
Sure, there may be problems with this interpretation of Oates’ and O’Connor’s stories, but they are merely logical, literal problems. A romantic critique, which necessarily believes in the “expressive theory of criticism” states that “the object of the artist is the expression of the artist’s emotions, impressions, or beliefs; it is an essential doctrine of the Romantic critic” (Holman 196). Therefore, with this in mind, and a sprinkle of imagination, one may be blessed with an epiphany that it seems highly likely that Oates, who read a lot of O’Connor, saw O’Connor as an extension of the grandmother character. And in so doing, Oates created a different dimension to this character in Connie. It may seem logically impossible, but “Gothic fiction is the freedom of the imagination, and the triumph of the unconscious” (Oates 8), so the Romantic voice in this essay may rest assured in his more extensive freedom of interpretation. Or as Oates writes, “Gothic work fascinates me because it is so powerful a vehicle of truth-telling, there is no wilder region for the exercise of Pure Imagination. The surreal is as integral a part of our lives as the ‘real,’ since the unconscious underlies consciousness, and we are continuously bombarded by images, moods and memories from that uncharitable terrain, it is in fact more primary than the ‘real.’ There is a profound difference between what appears to be, and what is” (Oates 7).

Works Cited
Oates, Joyce Carol. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been.” The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. Ed. Ann Charters. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003.

Joyce Carol Oates. “The Madness of Art: The Horror Writer and Society.” Writing Horror. Ed. Mort Castle. Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer’s Digest Books,1997.

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Classroom Assessment and Grading That Work

Classroom Assessment and Grading That Work by Robert J. Marzano
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book wasn't/isn't as spectacular as I had hoped. Probably the best part of this book is the distinction between "failure-avoidant" and "success-oriented" students. It's a bit reminiscent of Carol Dweck's "fixed" versus "growth" mindsets. Nevertheless, it does contain some helpful advice for teachers on how often one should assess students. It also gives guidance on utilizing specific objectives to create effective assessments that measure growth. Overall, it's a bit expensive, and I'm not sure it is worth the cost. One can find this information in various other places for free. That said, there isn't much ground-breaking material in here.

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The Will Power Instinct

The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It by Kelly McGonigal
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Willpower Instinct, by Kelly McGonigal is a fairly decent book on the human will. It discusses ways one can become more mindful of one's will, but it lacks a certain inspirational "something" that motivates one to continue thinking about the will. Ultimately, this is what's required in order to continue to cultivate the will. There are other books available that not only get one thinking about the will. This book reads like an academic wrote it who is trying to appeal to the masses, which is fine for those who are conducting research and need some good citations, but for those who desire an inspirational book that can be applied to daily life, they might look elsewhere. For the most part, this is a good primer on the willpower instinct. But, I had to put it down several times and read other, more inspirational books, during my venture through it.

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Imaginative Premise, Ruined By Obscenity

Imajica by Clive Barker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Imaginative Premise, Ruined By Obscenity

Imajica, by Clive Barker, is an interesting story about inter-dimensional power, social, financial, and sexual power. Though Barker is adept at keeping a narrative on track and somewhat interesting (I like his allusions to esotrica, magic, and his integration of the preternatural), but he loses my interest in his explicit excursions into obscenity and deviance. For some, explorations of chopped meat or explicit sex may be cathartic, but for others they tend to disgust. I wanted to enjoy the world of Imajica, because the story premise seems promising and imaginative, but Barker's seeming inability or at least unwillingness to rein in his own penchant for the "gross-out" ruins the atmosphere of the novel and seems to hinder the development of the characters. I'll give Barker another chance with The Great and Secret Show and Weaveworld.

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Update on Beneath a Smuggler's Moon

     So far, this summer, I've been diligently working on Beneath a Smuggler's Moon. I've got enough for a novellete so far. My goal is to have enough words for a novella before the school year begins.
     As I continue to pound it out, I've learned that the novel writing process is a lot like painting. At first, I look for shapes in the language, just getting down the story without getting bogged down with details. Similarly, a painter just gets his scene captured by sketching out general shapes on the canvas. Once a definitive picture is in place, the painter switches tools and starts refining details.
     I like separating each scene with a horizontal line within the document in order to create a strict demarcation between sequences. This is much like the way dreams work, except there is often no diving line between scenes. They just seem to blend together like a montage.
     I also use titles for each scene. Each scene has its own plot-line and definite beginning, middle and end. They are short stories in and of themselves, but they must relate to the overall story as a whole. I've found that by making each scene contain all the elements of plot, based on Freytag's pyramid, it becomes much more interesting for the reader. That means each scene must have a complication and crisis, no matter how minuscule, in order for it to remain interesting for the reader.
     As a fan of the mystery genres, I've been re-reading Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code as a guide. Brown enhances suspense by leaving readers with partial clues to a bigger picture that he answers after intermittent chapters. Not only are his plot devices effective in keeping readers interested, he also uses classical images embedded in contemporary myth to create a mood of beauty.
     I've been inspired to write a series of stories having to do with the Vatican. These stories have been rushing forth from the unconscious (my Muse), and it often feels like I'm not able to get to them in time, before they dissipate. I need to hurry and finish Smuggler's Moon and begin anew.
     Anyway, I made a goal of getting the novella completed by the end of August, at least the first draft. I'll go back in and refine the prose during the second draft, deeping character, enhancing mood, etc. If I can't get enough words for a novella, I'll extend my deadline to Christmas, but I should have enough for the entire novel completed by then. It all depends on the characters and what they want me to say.
     So far, because of the types of characters being born, the story is morphing into a pretty exciting and suspenseful narrative. The pastiche of images are dreamy, and the characters just keep pouring forth depths that give dimension to the overall story. What makes me most interested in keeping going is the magical elements that crop up here and there. There is a certain type of amulet that keeps popping up in the story, and I'm curious to find out what it means. More about that in a future post.

Socratic Seminars in English Literature Classes

While teaching a college-level Forms of Literature course at a local community college and an AP Literature and Composition course at a local magnet medical academy, I've found the technique students most respond to, in all classes, is the Socratic seminar, preceded by a literature circle.

After having read a few books on Socratic seminars and undergone several trial and error methods in several classes, I've modified the traditional format to one that works best in my classes. Here is my best practice, so far.

Within a block-schedule class structure, I first assign a reading for homework. Once upon entering class the day after the reading, students take a five-minute recall quiz (in a Google Form online) to determine whether they are ready to participate in the Socratic Seminar. I quickly grade the results in the Google Form, using the add-on Flubaroo. If 70% of students pass the recall quiz, I know it will be a somewhat fruitful discussion, so I let them proceed with the literature circles. If 70% of the class do not pass the recall quiz, I use an alternative "back-up" assignment, which includes some group work, ferreting out some literary concept from the text and giving a presentation at the end of class. Students typically don't like giving presentations, so they tend to try harder for the seminar (hee-hee).

After the recall quiz, in the literature circles, I separate students into groups of three and give them about ten minutes to generate five open-ended discussion questions on the assigned reading. They must share these questions with me in a Google Document, so I can vet the questions before they are used in the actual Seminar. Sometimes these discussion questions need a little work to make them relevant to learning objectives. I play relaxing electronic music on YouTube while they are engaged in this group activity to help relax them in their groups. Other teachers have walked in on us while this is going on and have commented on how "chill" the vibe was in the classroom. I have older students, so I don't usually have to worry about students losing focus. After the discussion questions get generated, we proceed with the seminar.

After dividing the class in half, I assign one half to be in the inner circle (where the actual seminar will take place). Students in the inner circle engage in discussion for a minimum of fifteen minutes. (Yes, I turn the music off during the seminar, and I stay completely out of the seminar discussion). If a good discussion ensues, I let it continue. Sometimes the discussions are so powerful and meaningful, students have had to excuse themselves from elicited emotions.

Anyway, before the discussion takes place, I assign the students in the outer circle to one peer within the inner circle. The student being evaluated (in the inner circle) does not know who is evaluating him/her. This creates a sense of anonymity that avoids potential conflict, while at the same time creates a greater sense of accountability within the student in the Seminar. I've found this method to be very effective in engaging typically timid and unmotivated students. For example, I've seen introverts become quite animated, because they know the instructor is not giving them a grade for this activity; they seem to perform better for an anonymous peer evaluator. The difference in motivation between performing for a peer and the instructor is an interesting dynamic I intend to explore later.

For students in the outer circle, I have a pre-built Google Form with scaled questions that ask the student to evaluate his or her assigned peer in the inner circle. Peer evaluators do not know what kind of grade s/he is giving his/her peer. All s/he knows is the five-point scale. Ultimately, this eliminates potential bias. The anonymity in peer evaluation encourages honesty and fairness in the evaluator. Not only that, the peer who is being evaluated does not know who evaluated him/her, which helps to mitigate possible grade inflation by a peer who may be trying to "help out his buddy."

Though students in the inner circle do not know who evaluated them, I do. I make all peer evaluators put their own name next to the person whom they evaluated, just in case there is a conflict, I can go back into the Google Sheet and see who evaluated whom. I created a formula in the Google Sheet that receives the peer evaluator's scaled responses that converts the five-point scaled total to a 100-point grade. After the first group completes their seminar, the two circles switch and the same process is repeated.

After getting students to sign a media consent form at the beginning of each semester, I also record the seminars with cellphones or my camcorder in order to archive the discussion or to have students go back and reflect on their own performances later on.

I've shown students the back end of how all of this works, and they absolutely love it; so much so, they show great disappointment when we don't do Socratic seminars. Some have even commented that they wish other teachers would do the same thing.