R5 Excerpts and Responses - Marian Stacey

Since we were using quotes this week I'll post one of mine as well.

"'God, I've never seen anything like this[," said Pauline.] Propping her head on the window frame, gazing; but Jenny knew Pauline had been here before. She'd been one of those girls in a calico dress, lace-up shoes, sun-straing pinching her eyes, thin long hair always tangled and wild and not in proper braids. One day, the Crow Indians come along and attack her parents' farmstead, scalp her parents, burn the house to the ground, abduct her thrown over their shoulders, her lace-up boots kicking. And the next thing you know, she's tearing around on a horse, wearing paint, giving the Crows who've adopted her hell... Jenny could see it in Pauline's deep eyes, if not her time-refined features." (Choi 285)
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Mary Martin
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"(Surrender wasn't an option. Radicalism, Jenny thought sometimes, was like Catholocism, with its extreme self-referntiality, its strict liturgy, its all-explaining view of the world, its absolute Satan, and its deadly sins, of which surrender was one- the very worst.)" (Choi 328)

Choi draws an intriguing comparison in defining social and politcal radicalism using religious vocabulary. The ultimate form of social resistance becomes comparable to what can be deemed the ultimate act of social compliance. The same comparison suggests a societal binary dependent on one's belief of "the Truth." For the members of the SLA, "Truth" was the sinful injustice of the masses at the hands of the foverning body. Surrender at the hans of such evil was deemed intolerable. The same group equally embodies the remaining traits of Radicalism/Catholicism as chose by Choi. Even as the movement lost direction, their own "self-referntiality" allowed the remains of the movement to continually express the truth of the people.
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Jean Dao
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Throughout the entire book, Doc Hata comes off as rather socially compliant, never really speaking up for anyone - not even himself - except for the scene in which he defends K and claims that he will marry her once the war is over. Doc Hata allows life to watch over him and decides to simply take a perch off to the side, particularly after the war. As Sunny says (or rather, accuses) "... you're made it so everyone owes something to you. You give these gifts out, just like to that policewoman, Como. She can't stand to cross you because you're this nice sweet man who's given when he didn't have to or want to but did anyway. You burden with your generosity (Lee 95)." By setting himself up [as a model citizen,] Doc Hata never has to face serious confrontations and can live a peaceful - albeit complacent - life.
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Keen Hahn
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Jenny, the fugitive radical, takes a completely abnormal position working for a rich, white woman in order to hide herself:

"She's usually deeply ensconced in the house by now, after having boiled the water and spilled the box of cookies onto the dish and decanted the milk into the creamer and dropped the cubes of sugar into the sugar bowl with tongs - Miss Dolly is scrupulous about the use of tongs, to prevent spread of germs - and carried the rattling tray onto the porch with old woman bringing up the rear in her fragile, methodical way. And then politely ducking off to some project-in-progress, before any visitors come up the path. By that time she'll be lying well out of reach and nearly out of sight beneath the library ceiling, on her jerry-rigged scaffold [...] hiding from the ritual of teatime but anxiously listening. How's that lovely Oriental girl working out?" (Choi 56)

Jenny, someone characterized as a political dissident, willingly subjects herself to a position of servitude. Through her action of separation from "teatime" can be seen as definitively resistant gesture, a refusal to participate in the discourses of old money and cultural myopia, she fulfills the role of the invisible servant by doing so. She is at once complacent and resistant as she condemns and flouts one stereotype while she fully embodies another. Jenny cannot, in this situation, cleanly resist or submit. The cultural climate is such that, regardless or her action she will be perceived in the way that the majority wishes to see her, which calls into question any form of resistance, ... .
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Angie Woodmansee
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... neither complicity nor radical activism seems to be represented as a sustainable mode of social existence. Although I was initially pulled toward Jenny's activism and was disturbed by Hata's complicity, after finishing American Woman I was equally unsettled by the problems that Jenny's political environment poses. In consideration of the complexities that each character faces (including those to be found within themselves), I do not feel that either approach is completely condemned or approved by the authors. The characters and situations seem to indicate that social, political, and national identities are dynamic, and that to tie oneself to one with the intent of using it to structure the rest of one's life is, in essence, an act that contains its own inevitable disintegration. Time moves forward, history is reshaped it is progression, and the circumstances are never quite the same; if one acknowledges this, it is impossible to believe that a static identity will suffice for the rest of one's life.
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Dan Parker
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Doc Hata's adopted daughter Sunny, despite her promiscuous actions and dangerous decisions, neither grapples with [the] existential crisis of the suppressed self, nor acquiesces to the oppression of either the literal of the figurative patriarchy - her father or the town - by severing all connections with her reality the moment it becomes unsatisfactory, and venturing forth of a quest to embrace her Identity. Jenny Shimada willingly protests against the government to express her dissatisfaction with the Vietnam War and furthers the motivational endeavor of her cause by bombing unoccupied buildings, and then becoming an accessory to kidnapping and a felon for housing fugitives:

"While each of Pauline's pretrial hearings, and the results of her numerous psychiatric exams, and the fluctuations in her family's optimism about her case's outcome, continued to be news everywhere, Jenny was mentioned just a handful of times over all, and always fleetingly (Choi 353)"

Despite their valiant efforts to be heard, the feminine voices become silenced through the oppression of the governing patriarchy: Sunny returns to her severed home through a wordless card; KKutaeh, who faces the military by killing Captain Ono, is raped and hacked to death; and Jenny amount to a minor detail, drowned by the media.
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Response
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The line between radicalism and complicity is surprisingly easy to blur, and I think that's part of what was so fascinating about the Patty Hearst case. Think about it. The whole question about whether or not she was guilty or an example of Stockholm syndrome was a way of asking, "Was Patty Hearst a truly radical or was she merely complying to the will of a radical group?"

This week was all about questioning complicity and radicalism, and perhaps Mary's excerpt is the place to start. Mary found a quote which brings to light how demanding it can be to subscribe to a way of thinking, no matter how radical the intentions of the group are radicalism is still not wholly different from a two thousand year old construct. Add in the fact that catholicism in similie or metaphor is heavily weighted by connotations of a powerful force because catholicism is run by the Papacy, or humans which speak for God. However, the papacy is lead by the most noble, saintly, (male) catholics on earth, so they can't be all bad, right?

Jean's quote about Doc Hata brings up the point that doing good and complicity have allowed Doc Hata to passively control the people of Bedley Run. Sunny accuses Hata of playing so well into the model citizen that he has somehow morphed into a being who is beyond reproach, but because Doc Hata is so unwilling to speak against that idea he has no choice but to be what other people think he is. Keen points out that Jenny is just as much a victim of how people percieve her. After all, Jenny as "The Oriental" seamlessly blends into the role of invisible servant fixing up a mansion which represents the very power structure she is rebelling against. However, her greater loyalty to Radicalism will not allow her to surrender, but without William she has no way to combat the power structure. Ultimately, in order to fight another day she must hide in the construct she and her group have condemned.

Angie is right in saying that there is no way that one can forever cling to one set of ideals. In fact, many of the characters end up changing before the reader's eyes. However, Dan brings up the excellent point that it is difficult to understand the intricacies of each individual story because the media is intent on presenting us with what is the most radical.