Margaret Cavendish: Writing a Female Mode of Rhetoric in Blazing World

I realize this blog has been dormant for months. This is not precisely because I haven't been writing (because I still keep 3 journals going pretty strong), but mostly because most of my other writing seems more fitting to be kept in other places. I haven't written straight-up stories in awhile. I did write the proudest seminar paper in my life, and am going to prove my nerdiness by including it in this collection. The fact that it's the last seminar paper I will ever write sort of saddens me.  

Margaret Cavendish: Writing a Female Mode of Rhetoric in Blazing World

If the world of rhetoric wasn’t complicated enough in the seventeenth century, Margaret Cavendish’s own position as an uneducated woman attempting to enter in conversation with intellectual males in the seventeenth century added complexity to her rhetorical situation—a complexity seamed through her writing that leaves rhetoricians a knotty puzzle to tease apart in determining which rhetorical methods Cavendish advocated, what she actually used, and why.

Since its codification under Aristotle, rhetoric has alternated between the darling and the demon of the intellectual society—at times embraced as the key to unlocking truth through logic, at others rejected as the primary barrier to truth and honest communication. During the time of Cavendish, rhetoric was going through another “demon cycle”, where many seriously debated its place in communication. Religion, government, and science were all going through a “plain style” revolution, and many writers labeled rhetoric as a purveyor of deceit, rather than knowledge. Rhetoric has always struggled in definition, out of its sheer complexity, so a brief definition for this paper is helpful. Rhetoric is the art of persuasion, but subdivides into the art of 1) creating arguments, 2) arranging arguments, and 3) delivering arguments. During the epistemologists in the seventeenth century, rhetoric increasingly came to refer to simply the “delivery” of arguments, and not a tool for finding truth (Robbins-Tiscione 45-50). Hence, when Cavendish used the vocabulary term “rhetoric,” she likely was referring to its stylistic function, and not its use for logical reasoning.

Most scholars studying Cavendish’s rhetorical style have focused on her rhetorical methods of “delivery,” or her stylistic choice. Scholarship has tackled the perplexing question of how Cavendish viewed rhetoric, whether she agreed or disagreed with her contemporaries on the “demonistic” function of rhetoric and whether she personally preferred the “plain style” touted by her peers. However, scholars’ discussion on Cavendish’s use of rhetoric has been limited to analysis of her stylistic structures, neglecting her use of rhetorical structure, or her methods of argument creation and arrangement. The question of Cavendish’s approach to rhetoric is incomplete when simply considering how she presents herself stylistically—it’s also important to examine how she advocates rhetoric persuasively.

A useful lens for exploring Cavendish’s rhetorical structure comes from Farrel’s theory of “male and female modes of rhetoric” in composition studies. The concept of male and female are not strictly gendered terms, but rather refer to different persuasive methods used with different audiences. The male rhetorical mode is a “direct” approach that views writing as a product of thinking and seeks to convey the mode as directly as possible. The female “indirect” mode begins with the assumption of a hostile reader, and uses more indirect reasoning, delaying a direct thesis until the conclusion. Writing in the female mode is seen as a record of thinking and a process for strengthening bonds between author and reader. As Farrel describes, “The female mode seems to obfuscate the boundary between the self of the author and the subject of the discourse, as well as between the self and the audience, whereas the male mode tends to accentuate such boundaries” (910). In looking at Cavendish’s Blazing World, it’s interesting to see that her rhetorical structure closely mirrors this described “female mode”—especially in light of her anticipation of a hostile audience. The relationship of Cavendish to her audience is a key point for understanding her choice of rhetorical organization and structure. To understand that relationship, this project will first look at the scholarly conversation on Cavendish’s vacillation between rhetorical styles and how that was influenced by her relationship to the Royal Society. Finally this paper will analyze the rhetorical structure found in Blazing World to argue that Cavendish, facing a hostile audience and trapped between her own views “against a linguistic elitism” (Nate 410) and her staunch anti-Royal Society position, chose to find her own rhetorical structure, making her one of the earliest female authors to write in Farrell’s indirect “female mode” of rhetoric.

Royal Society’s Rejection of Rhetoric and Advocacy for Plain Style

As mentioned, Cavendish lived in the rebirth of plain style, in the wake of the ornamentation that had laden Queen Elizabeth’s era. Where Humanism embraced rhetorical flourishes as a linguistic ideal, after the Restoration, scientists argued for a plain style. Scholars such as Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes rejected “rhetorical logic” as it could only bring “probable knowledge” (Robbines-Tiscione 48), favoring observation instead as a more empirical source. The Royal Society, in particular, advocated this style of writing in their dialogue. Thomas Sprat, in his History of the Royal Society (1667) argued to avoid “amplifications, digressions, and swellings of style” in writing, as they create “many mists and uncertainties” in “our Knowledge” (112-13). On the one hand, this distrust of elaborate style is reflective of the era. Stark noted that the correlation between “swollen styles and bad manners” matches to the sixteenth and seventeenth century anxieties about “excessive styles and social discord” (268), and Nate describes the Royal Society’s attitude as the “rhetoric of anti-rhetoric” that has cyclically re-occurred in European intellectual history since Plato’s rhetorical criticism of the Sophists (406).

An additional reason for the Royal Society’s adherence to “plain style” was their need to find a new style of expression for what was essentially a new method of knowledge acquisition—scientific inquiry by experimentation and deduction, rather than reasoned dialogue. Previous methods of composition typically were written for beauty and instruction, where the nature of the wording itself often held key points. Early scientists like Francis Bacon found that these models were not supportive of the method needed for their work. When the members of the Royal Society spoke against rhetoric, they were not talking about dumbing down their language. They were referring specifically to the use of figurative language and expression, and advocating a renouncing of deliberately used rhetorical figures. It was felt that such manners of expression were deceptive and cloaked real truth from ready access. In reality, the Royal Society was not arguing for an elimination of rhetoric, but rather a return to classical rhetoric that argued for perspicuitas as opposed to obscuritas, where elegant language is acceptable, but only as used to augment clarity rather than obscure the truth behind elegant display—an age-old complaint against rhetoric. As she began her writing, Cavendish walked into an already passionate dialogue on rhetoric—especially in relation to the Royal Society, who she was particularly vocal in criticizing. As she worked to enter the conversations of the seventeenth century intellectual community, Cavendish found herself similarly embroiled in making that decision for herself: Rhetoric—plain or fancy?

Cavendish’s Stylistic Dichotomy

Part of the reason scholars are divided on so simplistic a question as Cavendish’s rhetorical style is because Cavendish’s own writings on the subject are perplexingly contradictory. On one hand, her preface to the second edition of Philosophical and Physical Opinions (1663) proudly remarks, “It is Plain and Vulgarly Express’d as having not so much Learning as to Puzle the Reader with Logistica, Metaphysica, Mathematical, or the like Terms.” On the other hand, her forward to the biography of her husband, Life of William Cavendish (1667), suggests she liked things a little fancier:

I said again that rhetoric did adorn truth: and he answered, that rhetoric was fitter for falsehoods than truths. Thus I was forced by his Grace’s commands to write this history in my own plain style, without elegant flourishings, or exquisite method, relying entirely upon truth, in the expressing whereof, I have been very circumspect.

The two passages illustrate different points of her opinion, displaying perhaps her own confusion on how she really felt about rhetoric. Cavendish’s writings themselves display no one writing style—varying between plain and highly ornate throughout her writing career. This dichotomy has led scholars to set up opposing camps on Cavendish’s choice of rhetorical style.

Some scholars argue that Cavendish deliberately embodies a fancier form of rhetoric, in rejection of the Royal Society’s rejection of rhetoric, insisting that this is part of what distances her from the peers she seeks to engage with, and concluding that “Cavendish’s stylistic “indiscretions” damaged her reputation as a writer” (Stark 279). In contrast, opposing scholars argue that while Cavendish’s writings reflect non-conformity towards New Sciences philosophical matters, she did in fact conform to their rhetorical preference. In fact, Cavendish uses their stylistic approaches specifically to enter the conversation (Nate 416-17)—after all, to speak against a language, it’s best to be first fluent in it. While disagreeing on whether Cavendish preferred a plain or ornate style, all scholars credit Cavendish’s choice of rhetoric as highly influenced by her intellectual peers and potentially hostile audience.

Using the “Female Mode” to Diffuse an Audience

            Farrell credits the origination of the terms “male and female modes” of rhetoric to D’Eloia, and uses them in a full analysis on early female forms of literature to trace out D’Eloia’s theory. As mentioned briefly before, the distinction is primarily one of argumentative arrangement. The male mode typically presents the thesis or main point at the beginning of the argument, with the confidence that he will prove it emphatically by the article’s conclusion. In contrast, the female mode reflects insecurity of absolute opinion. The writer will lead the reader through a series of experiences and/or line of reasoning, not giving the conclusion until it is almost impossible to deny the emotional or logical validity of the claim (909). Gender is not implicit with the “male” and “female” modes, for some male authors use the female method, and some female authors use the male mode. Farrell notes that Queen Elizabeth, for example, wrote often in the direct, male mode of her peers (911). However, Farrell points out that the female mode did develop in trend along with the rise in female authors, perhaps as a defense mechanism from early female writers accustomed to addressing an incredulous audience.

            From that argument, Cavendish certainly fits the profile of an author likely to use the female mode of writing. Cavendish was actively attempting to insert herself into a masculine public sphere, particularly through the discourse of new science, and her writings were not positively received. Pepys famously wrote that he did “not like her at all, nor did [he] hear her say anything that was worth hearing,” and Charleton wrote to Cavendish that he was “unable to discover much” in her natural philosophy and advised that it should not be read publicly (Keller 449). This antagonism on the part of her readers made a direct approach less effective for Cavendish, as she was challenged to soften her readers in addition to relaying her point. The rejection of her earlier, more direct plain style prose pushed her then to develop a more indirect method, as can be seen in her key fictional work Blazing Word.

Blazing World: Simple Prose in Female Mode

When Cavendish writes Blazing World, she does seem to follow a definite female mode, one that allows her to explore her world without the interrogative of male thesis/antithesis, but one of indirect examination through observation. This can be seen in three key ways: 1) delayed thesis, 2) focus on collaborative reconciliation, and 3) interior complexity.

One of the most interesting parts of Cavendish’s writing is the difference in content from her introduction and conclusion. While very implicit and confident in her concluding note, her preface is couched more timidly and apologetically, skirting around her main objective as she declares it in conclusion. Her purpose—to give her own, authoritative version of natural philosophy—drips into the text in the forward, but is not implicitly stated until the final note to the reader, where Cavendish unashamedly declares her own genius. Cavendish seems sensitive to this because of her audience, aware that she is writing her traditionally scoffed-at views on natural philosophy. Though Blazing World is a fiction piece, it seems to be another attempt for her to enter the natural philosophy conversation. She is sensitive that her fictitious work could be seen as an ill or foolish choice for a serious discussion on natural philosophy. Hence, the preface becomes her excusatory discourse on the concept of fancy and using fiction as a vehicle for rational philosophy. She seems to anticipate resistance, almost apologizing for her genre selection before presenting her piece, as if anticipating resistance. She asks the reader to “think not that it is out of disparagement to philosophy; or out of an opinion, as if this noble study were but a fiction of the mind” (123). In contrast, her conclusion boldly states, “By this poetical description, you may perceive, that my ambition is not only to be Empress, but Authoress of a whole world” (224), which is a much stronger statement. The contrast highlights the principle of a delayed thesis, which is a key distinguisher of the female mode of rhetoric, where any purpose that might be there is not expressed until after the argument is fully established.

Cavendish creates heroines who focus not on destruction, but on collaboration leading to reconciliation. Part of the reason the plot seems frustratingly empty to some readers, is precisely because Cavendish avoids major points of conflict, creating instead a world “so well ordered that it could not be mended; for it was governed without secret and deceiving policy; neither was there any ambition, factions, malicious detractions, civil dissensions, or home-bred quarrels…but all the people lived in a peaceful society, united tranquility, and religious conformity” (189). Even in her concluding “war scene” where the Empress goes to save her country, the course of the war takes only 13 pages of the roughly 100-page narrative; the majority of her dialogue and action focuses on reconciliation. The action itself struggles somewhat, which Farrell notes is a characteristic point of the female mode. He explains, “Because the female mode does not lend itself to combat and closure as readily as the male mode, it does not rely as heavily on antithesis to structure reasoning” (919). Cavendish is more interested in reasoning, exploring, and creating than in creating narrative tension and resolution.

To the concept of interior complexity, Nate argues that Blazing World as a work is a failure because it lacks the male antithesis of a concrete point of plot or reason, he contends “Lacking narrative coherence and being devoid of any fixed point of reference, the narrative stands in sharp contrast to the principle of perspicuity that Cavendish advocated in her philosophical writings” (415). However, the truth is that Blazing World does have a point, but rather than one with “interior complexity” of a single thesis, as Farrell describes the male rhetorical mode (919), Cavendish builds a complex, differentiated whole. Instead of building a world for the purpose of holding a particular narrative plot, she builds a world with the purpose of simply understanding the full range of its complexity and complications.

Conclusion

Despite claims that her works are “just my own fancy”, it’s clear that Cavendish takes her own writing seriously and craves that approval from others. In her writing career, she vacillates between various writing styles in attempt to enter dialogue with her contemporary intellectual community. When her earlier writings are rejected by her intellectual peers, she develops almost a nervous complex towards her audience. Her later writings show her preoccupation with a hostile reception, and, carrying the stigma that women can’t write, she seems to shift towards new methods of argumentation—espousing this “female mode of rhetoric” in her work Blazing World. Cavendish  takes the reader on a journey, without first naming a destination, and it is only after arrival that her true genius is obvious. She manages to blend plain and fancy prose in an elegant basket to carry her natural philosophy to the reader in a new, indirect argumentation structure.

That Cavendish uses a unique approach—still decades prior to its adoption in mainstream composition studies—isn’t surprising. Cavendish famously prided herself on her singularity, shown in her every dress and action, even when at personal expense to her reputation. In her writings, she admits constantly craving feeling unique. As she expressed in Blazing World through her character the Duchess, “I endeavor to be as singular as I can; for it argues but a mean nature to imitate others; and though I do not love to be imitated if I can possibly avoid it; yet rather than imitate others, I should choose to be imitated by others; for my nature is such, that I had rather appear worse in singularity, then better in the mode” (218).

Works Cited

Cavendish, Margaret. The Blazing World & Other Writings. Ed. Kate Lilley. London:

Penguin Books, 1992. Print.

_____   Life of William Cavendish, Ed. C.H.Firth. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1906. Print.

Farrell, Thomas J. “The Female and Male Modes of Rhetoric.” College English 49.8

(1979): 909-21. Print.

Keller, Eve. “Producing Petty Gods: Margaret Cavendish’s Critique of Experimental

Science.” ELH 64.2 (1997): 447-471. Print.

Nate, Richard. “Plain and Vulgarly Express’d”: Margaret Cavendish and the Discourse of

the New Science.” Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric 19.4 (2001):

403-417. Print.

Robbins-Tiscione, Kristen Konrad. Rhetoric for Legal Writers: The Theory and Practice

of Analysis and Persuasion. Washington: WEST, 2009. Print.

Sprat, Thomas. History of the Royal Society of London. Ed. Jackson Cope and Harold

Whitmore Jones. St. Louis: Washington UP, 1958. Print.

Stark, Ryan John. “Margaret Cavendish and Composition Style. Rhetoric Review 17.2

(1999): 264-81. Print.

The Civility Experiment

The Tale of Serenity Gardner

(Another short story written for a snarky professor, except, minus the ending, I really liked this one.)

Short Story                                                                                                                4,450 Words

Why Is my Name Serenity? (Working Title)

On the Wednesday morning of June 7^th at the sticky, messy table of a pristine little house in a suburb of Virginia I, Serenity Gardner, learned what most other 11 year olds have already known for a million years: burnt eggs and toast taste disgusting. I didn’t know that before, because my nose has never worked. And because my nose does not work, I do not have a very refined sense of palate. This isn’t always a bad thing, because when you are the littlest girl in a house of 5 big brothers with J’s for names, you usually only get the burnt parts anyway. The problem is I had a surgery two days ago to fix my nose. Now I mind getting the burnt parts, because I realize they taste disgusting.

Unfortunately, there is nothing else left on the table. Except for a sticky jar of boysenberry jam with a paper airplane stuck to the side and a plate with melted, crumbed-up butter. The other paper airplane is soaking up a pile of cranberry juice on the far end of the table. Obviously Joshua and Jordan were having another war. I scrape my black toast with the crummy butter, watching the knife spread a thick layer of perfectly toasted golden crumbs from the butter dish and hoping they will make mine taste better. They don’t.

“Serenity, are you still eating breakfast? We need to go – they boys are late.” Mom is a thin woman with a thin mouth and a thin temper. Sometimes the mouth is smiling, but usually not at me. I usually get the up-side-down smiles that I have to pretend are smiles.

“I tried eating but the food is indigestible.” I was really not complaining, just stating my status.

Unfortunately, Mom didn’t seem to think so. I get another up-side-down smile.

“Perhaps you should try getting downstairs on time once in a while instead of playing in your room. Hurry into the car unless you would like to stay and do dishes.”

My mother called me Serenity because she said she wanted a calm, peaceful girl after all her boys. She didn’t do a very good job naming me, which I think disappoints her. I am not very calm or serene. I do try sometimes. I will try to sit very, very still in the patch of sunlight in front of my window, like Mom and her friends do every Wednesday and Friday morning at seven, legs crossed in color-coordinated sweat suits on colored yoga mats, copying a big black man on a yoga DVD. They all sweat and smile and look serene.

The man on the DVD has a deep, throaty voice that sounds like someone with a cold. He says to think about nothing. The problem is as soon as I try to think of nothing, everything starts wanting to be thought about. Then my nose will start itching. And as soon as I scratch it my back will start itching. The whole sitting still turns into one long itching and I give it up. I am not made to be serene, even though I am very sorry about that.

“Serenity! Hurry please. Your father has the other car and I need to get all your brothers dropped off.” My mother is a politician’s wife, so her voice never rises to a shout. But it will rise in pitch through different warning levels, and when it gets to a certain pitch, that’s like as bad as when my best friend Cassidy’s Mom starts yelling out full names at his house. Jeffery, who is a science nerd and who is very smart, drew a chart once in his notebook for the different levels of Mom’s voice. He said it would help us remember when to beware of Mom. I think her level now is about at a 4.5 on a scale of 6.

“Coming!” I look sadly at my toast and leave the table, my stomach still hungry.

Dropping off my brothers takes a long time. It’s Saturday in the summer time, so every one of them has somewhere else to be, and they’re all stressed out about not being there on time. Or rather, Mom is stressed for them.

We sit in the van in exact age order. Kind of like the Christmas cards Mom sends out every year. A perfect row of perfect boys, framed with Dad’s beaming grin and Mom’s thin smile. Names and ages thread the bottom corner of the card, weaving around a pair of reindeer: James (19), Jeffery (17), Joshua & Jordan (15), Jonathon (13), and Serenity (11). I’m in the corner, kind of not touching everyone else, with awkward teeth and limp hair that wouldn’t hold the curls Mom put in. The photographer thought that I would look more centered in the front, but Mom wanted it in order. Mom likes having things ordered, from her ordered abs to her ordered eyebrows; she spends a lot of time keeping order. My brothers say she is OCD, but I don’t know what that means and I don’t want to look stupid asking. I hope it’s not a disease or catching or, as Jonathon said something is called that goes from a parent to a child, hereditarian.

“James, please. Do not get hair gel on the dashboard.” Mom says in exasperation as her perfect nails dial the radio for a classical station. Jordan had switched all her presets to rap and alternative again.

“Yeah, you might want to do your eyebrows.” Josh advised, “It looks like a few hairs are unmolested.” Josh and Jordan snigger together and throw volleyballs at each other over the seat. Mom kind of sighs and presses her head, like she’s trying to hold it in one place.

James is pretty good at ignoring the twins, better than most people are. He just adjusts the passenger mirror to check the final effect before shoving his stuff back in his pocket. Again. He’s been doing that ever since he got a girlfriend. James is actually in college, but he doesn’t want to move out yet because he says it’s not convenient. Dad says it had better become convenient pretty soon because he doesn’t feel like paying for James and his endless supply of hair gel now that James is past being an adult.

Because we have so many kids, Mom needs a way to order us.  Most of us know her speech by heart. “Well there’s James, he’s our international diplomat. He wants to go into politics.” Sometimes I don’t think James has a choice about being the next president, because if he doesn’t want it bad enough, Mom does.

“Then there is our biologist, Jeffery.” I read a newspaper article on Jeffery once about how he invented a cure for some fly disease. The paper neglected to mention that Jeffery caught and used about ten bajillion flies and left all the dead ones in neat stacks under my pillow, in my hamper, or in my toothbrush. Although, Jordan and Josh may have helped more than a little with that. These days Jeffrey mostly ignores me, but he isn’t mean to me, so I guess that’s okay.

“And then there are our sports stars, Josh and Jordan.” J squared, as they like to call themselves, specialize in being mean to me, kicking balls, and kissing girls. And they are good at all three. Jonathon likes books and doing what Josh and Jordan do. Except he’s not good at kicking balls or kissing girls.

“And there is Jonathon, our literary scholar.” I know Jonathon writes all kinds of smart stuff, but he says a lot of dumb stuff, so I don’t know how those work.

“And then there is Serenity, my angel.” That’s sort of a cop-out answer, since I don’t think I’m very angelic, but she doesn’t have any other category for me yet. She keeps trying.

In that Christmas card Mom got this awesome idea that each of us should hold something that showed our talent. James has a globe of the world. Jeffery has a microscope and a set of chemicals. Josh and Jordan wanted to hold swimsuit magazines, but Mom made them use soccer balls instead. Jonathon was easy too, a set of “classic literature” that made him look smart. (He even lied to the eye doctor to get glasses). The problem is, I don’t have a talent.

Mom tries. She says it’s important for us all to be proud of something. The year of the six (that is how Mr. Wallace says I should call them) she put me in dance, but the teacher said I looked like a duck. Year of the eight she started me in gardening and sewing, but my marigold was the only one to die (even though Josh didn’t even water his) and I kept getting blood on the stupid duck pillow.

Year of the nine I started violin, but Dad said his ears couldn’t take it and my fingers kept hurting. Last year we tried gymnastics, but Mom got tired of taking me to the ER (even though the casts were kind of cool), because my bones sort of break easy. Then it was baking classes, but Josh still talks about the cake I tried to cook double fast by turning the oven on 500. I don’t like being laughed at. The top was charcoal and hard, but batter oozed out of Jeffery’s spatula gash in the middle.

This year Mom tried art stuff. I still think my painting looked sort of like a tree, but Jordan insists it’s more like a monkey scratching fleas, and my bust of Dad makes him look pregnant. Therefore, I, Serenity Gardner, am still in search of a talent, and mom just tells people I’m her angel, since she doesn’t have anything else to say.

She finally had me hold a lotus, which she said was the Chinese flower of serenity, old and wise. Even the photographer thought it looked weird, though she didn’t say so. But11-year olds with crooky teeth and flat curls look weird with old, wise flowers. Oh well. Pictures don’t especially look like what people look like anyway. We all look happy to be together in the picture, but Jordan is pinching Josh and Dad threatened to take away Jonathon’s allowance if he didn’t smile.

“Mom? We’re supposed to turn left here. You’re going the wrong way.” Jeffery called out.

“No, I am dropping James off at class first. He will be late if I drop you off first.”  

“But if I don’t get to the parking lot by 9 the service committee might leave without me.”

“You didn’t tell me that, I thought you were planting flowers there.” Mom’s frazzled face peeps from her mouth and eye corners before smoothing.

“Naw, we’re going to some jail or something.”

“Well, it looks like you’ll be a few minutes late. Is there anyone you can call?”

“No. I don’t have anyone’s number.”

“I wrote it down on the board at home.”

“Well I don’t exactly carry it around with me.”

“But that’s not fair,” Josh piped in, “Our game starts in 20 minutes. We won’t even get there on time if we’re dropped off third.” Mom’s scale is approaching 5.5.

“You told me your game starts at ten.”

“Well yeah,” Jordan said, “But warm-ups start at 9:15, and if we aren’t there for that we might not be allowed to play.” I leaned into the corner. I was still hungry.

It takes three hours to get everyone to where they are supposed to go. James ends up late to Economics and slams the door with his textbook, scowling, with his hair coming un-gelled (which he glared at me for pointing out).

Jonathon missed his chance to get a front row at the symposium, or something, I didn’t really know what he was talking about. Jeffery was sulking because he didn’t want to be at a service project planting flowers anyway.

After a panic to get Jordan and Josh to the game on time, which made Jonathan late, their soccer game was canceled, which the clipboard lady said they would have known if they had given Mom the pink schedule they brought home last week.

Mom is mad she missed her yoga class. But Jordan says that it doesn’t matter anyway because yoga is just dumb to start with, which was not a very wise thing to say, because that probably pushed her up to a 5.8. When the red minivan finally gets back, everyone is upset, except me, who am just very, very hungry.

I don’t think it’s very fair to me to be driving around all day and not even be going anywhere. I mention this, and it doesn’t go over very well. Mom turns and glares at all of us, and her thin temper gets thinner. “I am going upstairs and I am going to take a nap and if I hear one word or sound that wakes me up, so help me.”

Mom never says what the so help me is, and so far, no one has dared to ask. I think Jeffrey did once, but Dad was standing there and he quickly took Jeffrey out back to explain in a no uncertain man to man what “so help me” meant, and that’s been her last straw thing ever since.

***

“Hey Renny!” Josh’s basketball bounced into my too-pink and perfect bedroom before his long legs. “Want to come to Kroger’s with me?”

“What for?”

“Oh just because. I think Mom needs some detergent.” Which means he doesn’t want to tell me until we leave. Which probably means he is scouting for girls.

“Will you buy me ice cream too?” Mom was so mad that she didn’t make lunch when we got home, and we aren’t allowed in the kitchen outside of meals. My stomach is committing cannibalism.

The basketball bounced. “You aren’t allowed. And who said we’re going to get ice cream?”

“I’m not stupid.”

“Okay, fine, but not a word to Mom.”

Usually my older brothers don’t notice I exist, but each one has an exception. Josh and Jordan will take me as girl bait, because I am littler than most 11 year olds and they say that chicks dig the family man. Jordan told me he would pay me not to get any bigger or stronger, because more pathetic looking sisters get more girls over.

I am usually sick. Not always, but pretty often. Which I sort of hate, because the 58 ceiling tiles over my bed are really boring and Mom won’t let me paint them. I don’t even go to regular school. Ms. Dalena, my formerly favorite teacher who would wear red boots to school when it rained, told Mom that since I seemed to be home more than at school, perhaps it would be better for me to not go to school at all. Sometimes I wonder if she just didn’t like me.

That is why grumpy Mr. Wallace, with an uneven gray mustache that’s thicker on one side and whiter on the other, comes in on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to talk a lot and make sure I’ve done my homework. He’s supposed to be my tutor, but I don’t think he knows very much. I asked him once how come people on the equator didn’t get dizzy from it spinning faster than at the poles, and he just glared at me and said it wasn’t a relevant question. He says that a lot.

When I was in the bathroom and therefore invisible, I heard Mom explain to Mr. Wallace that I am delicate. But I am not sure what that means. I looked it up in the Miriam Webster that sits on Dad’s desk in the middle of bunches of his titles and degrees, which I see more than I see Dad, but it wasn’t very helpful because it can’t make up its mind. It says it can mean someone who is fastidious, someone who has fine discrimination, someone who is fragile, or someone who is marked by great precision. I know fragile means easily broken, but I don’t think dictionaries are actually very helpful at understanding things.

I asked Jonathon, since he is mostly a dictionary himself and might know better, but unfortunately Joshua and Jordan were listening, and Jonathon is always meaner when the twins are around, so he told me it either meant I was a spoiled twit or I was as easily separate-able as a hydrogen bond. And I didn’t know what that meant either, so it still wasn’t very helpful.

When we get to Kroger, Josh reminds me again that I am not allowed, which is partly because he cares and mostly so I will be grateful, and buys me an orange ice cream cone with mint sprinkles on it. Which he calls repulsive and which I call delicious. The high school kid with the white coat looks bored and pulls a dirty scoop out of the rocky road to use, which makes the orange look dirty.

Josh and Jordan get malts so they can lean back on the counter, texting each other so they look important, and sip and look hip, pressing their Tommy Hilfigers and white t-shirts into the counter. “Got to be hip to get hip,” they explained to Jonathon once. 

A short blonde girl with leggings and a short skirt that hugs skinny hips comes in, laughing with her friend who is wearing sharpied jeans, logo necklaces, and All Star converse. Josh smiles at me affectionately and ruffles my hair.

I glare at him. “That is my head.”

“And that’s my money that just bought you ice cream.” A deal was a deal. I smile sweetly at him, and stuck a spoonful in my mouth. It makes my throat taste creamy.

The reason I never get ice cream is because it’s on the long list of “Serenity No Nos” Mom has pasted to the fridge. And I, Serenity Gardner, usually try to follow it, which is mostly easy because I only ever eat at home or if Mom is ordering food. But it’s a very, very long list. Mom always says I will go into apoplectic shock if I eat anything on it, but so far I have eaten a lot of things on it by accident, and on purpose, and I have not yet had any apoplectics. Jonathon told me this is just an OCD thing and she always has a list for the youngest child.  

Josh glances at the girls. He does the flip hair thing and the eye contact thing, and the girls give him the once over thing, smile at me, and then walk to the gum section so they can not-watch the boys over the magazine rack.

Josh and Jordan tried to explain this to Jonathon, but I don’t think he ever got it: “Dude, it’s all about the body language man. It’s got to talk louder than your mouth.”

Body language is not something Jonathon understands very well. He mostly sticks to an awful lot of people and dictionary language. Languages, according to Mr. Wallace, are how two people communicate together. And if it doesn’t make sense, you don’t know the language. I guess we have a lot of language at home. Mom speaks French. James and Dad talk in politic. J squared talk in bodies. Jeffery talks in chemicals. I guess I just speak Serenity, but I don’t think other people speak it very much.

My throat is starting to feel very not creamy. The girls are taking a long time, so Jordan gets out a sharpie and starts doodling on his jeans. The girls start to wander back over. Josh affectionately leans over and whispers in my ear, “You’re a dork, you know that,” and smiles at his favorite little sister.

My neck is starting to get tighter, but I smile adorably at him. I know my job. Jordan sharpies on his jean again. It works.

The blond, skinny hipped one smiles at me. “How old is your little sister? She’s so cute.”

Josh leans back and smiles. “Ha ha, you know, she just wanted some ice cream.” Which wasn’t what she asked, but I don’t think she noticed, because she smiles and giggles like her nose is stuck.

“So, aren’t you famous or something?” Jordan asked the other one. All Stars shifted her feet and flipped her hair.

“Maybe, why?”

“Well, you have so many autographs, mind if I add one?” He gestures at her jeans. She laughs and he leans over to trace his name and number onto her leg, taking a long time.

“So, you got a name, or shall I call you sunshine?” Josh asks the blonde girl.

She gives stuffed giggle. “Bonnie, but you can call me sunshine, if you really want.” She pulls out her sparkly cellphone and starts flipping it open and closed. Josh says something again, something with “Ha ha,” and she giggles again. They sound really dumb.

My nose is itching together and my breath feels funny. My heart is bouncing too, up and down and back and forth. I tug on Jordan’s sleeve, but he is making a curly heart onto the girl’s jeans, and she is giggling, so he ignores me. I try Josh, but he leans backwards and stomps on my foot.

“Yeah, I live around here, somewhere.” Bonnie starts texting someone, but she’s doing it all fakey, like Josh does when he is trying to look busy.

Josh leans back, “So what, do I have to guess what fair kingdom doth send you here?”

Once Jeffery tried to make me swallow a cotton ball, and it got stuck in my throat. Mom was really mad at him, but he said he was trying to prove that girls have bigger mouths than guys do. It left fuzzy pieces in my throat for a long time. It sort of feels like that now. I try to say something but nothing is coming out. And my air is starting to not to past either.

I tug on Jordan again and All Stars looks at me. “Oh my gosh! Dude, your sister is like one big blister. Her skin is all bad. Is she breathing?”

My cone is in my lap, because my fingers stopped bending. Orange and brown are pouring down my hopping knee, which I can’t get to hold still, with mint pieces sticking to my leg.

“Oh crap.” Jordan moans and grabs the ice cream. “Josh, you didn’t get her anything with peanuts did you?”

“No – it was orange.”

“Then why is there brown in her cone? Renny, Renny, are you there? Crap, Jordan, do we have to call Mom? She’s really pissed right now and she’ll kill us.”

Of course I’m here. I haven’t left. But I can’t move anything, and my throat doesn’t have much room for air anymore, and it’s getting hard to see. And I really hope they don’t call Mom.

“Oh my gosh! We are watching her die! Do something!” Bonnie is screaming. Josh starts yelling.

I don’t remember the next few minutes very much. Bonnie screams a few times. And All Stars is poking my mouth open. 

“Dude, get your sister to the hospital, she’s gonna die.” Am I? I sort of thought dying would be creamier than this. Aren’t you supposed to see white lights or something? All I hear is fuzzy, like Jonathon’s cotton balls were in my ears now.

***

I open my eyes and sneeze. It smells funny and the light is too bright, which doesn’t make sense. Then I see the machine over my head and sigh. A hospital. Again. Mom is sitting in a black folding chair next to me, rubbing her wrists raw against the rail on the bed. Her right hand cups her chin as she stares out the window, the other chips at the nail polish on her left fingers, flecks of pink falling on the blue sheet. I wonder how much trouble I am in.  

When I sneeze, she turns and glares puffy eyes at me, like they look like in the spring time when she spends too long touching grass. Her voice is perfectly smooth and quiet, but all tense and packed of things that say I’m in trouble. “Why Serenity, why? You knew better. I have told you again and again not to eat things on your list. Why didn’t you listen?” Mom’s perfect face, which usually I only see even crease, has completely cracked. Her pupils are big and pointed and her breath is kind of coming in gasps.

I don’t know what to say and my tongue is sticking to my mouth, so I shrug. Her face gets looser, “Do you want some water?”

I nod and she hands me a paper cup of ice cubes. There isn’t much water in it, so I put one in my mouth. Which makes me realize that the inside of my cheeks taste gross, like rotten oranges. Outside the door in the hallway I can see Josh and Jared, seated on either side of a red haired girl in the hospital suit. Jared pushes a pretzel bag at her, and she takes one, laughing. I wonder where Bonnie and All Star went. 

The tapping started again on my bed. Mom is staring out the window again. I count three minutes. She doesn’t say anything.

“Mom, I don’t think my name should be Serenity. Can I change it?” That will probably get me in trouble, and I wish I hadn’t said it.

Her fingers stop drumming. “Why?”

“I don’t know, but I’m not very good at it.”

She makes a funny sound, a choked one. I look up, wondering if I made her mad. She’s bent over shaking and making snorting sounds. Is she laughing? Mom doesn’t laugh, so I don’t know what that means.

I tap my toes to count the seconds. I count 48 of them before she looks up again. She’s smiling, a real one that crinkles her eyes. My face is sticky with sweat and I think puke, but she kisses each cheek with her minty breath and touches my hand.

“Serenity, your name is perfect. I don't have to tell you why.” I don’t know what that means, but she’s smiling at me with her whole face. I don’t remember her ever doing that before. I smile back. And just for a second, I feel like serenity.

The Tale of Jasper Bean and his Revenge on Bolivar Shurgnasty

(Pure random - written slightly tongue-in-cheek to a slightly snarky professor based on the conglomeration of ideas from calling home for five minutes.)

Bolivar Shurgnasty smiled cheerfully and threw open the doors of Bolivar Restorante: Eat Fresh! “What a lovely day!” He exclaimed buoyantly as he enthusiastically sucked in the 12-degree air into his quivering lungs and happily juggled knives in the air. “Isn’t it excellent Jasper?”

“Oh yes, indeed,” I said sarcastically with a polite smile, “The best in the world sir!” for a moron anyway. I am from Arizona and do not appreciate New York’s frigid air. It’s absurdly useful. It makes the fat New Yorkers hungry and they come and stuff their faces with pasta and other good stuff. Business is always worse in the summer time when it’s too hot to eat anything. Maybe that’s why Arizona always had such crappy restaurants.

My name is Jasper Bean. This is my story. I am a mistreated, misrepresented, miserable line chef suffering under Bolivar’s regime in one of the most famous Italian restaurants in New York City. I am brilliant, smart, audacious, and at some point going to take New York City by a storm with my own restaurant. Bolivar is one of the most irritating men I have ever met. 45. Bald. Ugly. Single. Deathly allergic to basil. Seemingly daft as a post. And somehow he manages to invent the most delicious recipes I have ever tasted, all without basil. No basil? How are they even Italian? I’m pretty convinced that if I can get a hold of his blasted recipes and add some basil, they will be perfect. Maybe even open a more famous restaurant.

Bolivar deftly caught the five knives in perfect succession and turned to his kitchen with a smile. “We have a lot to do today boys! Let’s have at it. Fire up the ovens. Sweep the must from the air! Let’s fill this kitchen with savory and real Italiano, no? Clarence, start the bread. Bordeaux, the sausage and sauce prep. And Jasper, my fine friend, we need 50 pounds of onions.”

I smiled with carefully poised enthusiasm. “Whatever you say Bolivar! Onions are my favorite!” It’s not like I don’t have anything else important to do anyway. I of course would love to cry my eyes out cutting up your smelly onions. I would love to rot another 20 years at the bottom of the totem poll in this joint. It really, really isn’t fair you know. One of life’s injustices
I am much better at business than Bolivar could ever dream of being. It was my idea to hire a decent designer to re-do the previously crappy decor in the front. Who gets the credit? Bolivar. It’s Bolivar this, Bolivar that. Whatever. Life is full of injustices. It’s like one the kid on the playground with the red hair and ugly green shirt gets picked first for basketball just because he’s taller. It’s not the like freckled kid with glasses could do anything about his height. Not that that has ever happened to me, because it hasn’t. And don’t think that it has.

This whole place is really run down anyway. It’s kind of a fire hazard. The walls are rotten and crumbling and the old, huge brick oven sends sparks everywhere. The health inspectors actually came around last time and I’m pretty sure they would have failed the place, except Bolivar was charming and gave them free éclairs.

“Brigitte!” Jasper bellowed cheerfully, clapping his hands together over an apron that his belly threatened to burst through, “First customers!” Ah, Brigitte. I turned from my miserable chopping corner to wipe my onion-streaming eyes and steal a peek at her as she brushed into the room. I never was sure what to think of her. Some days she was an elegant brunette with a creamy complexion and a whispering smile. Some days she was a gangly blonde with red brushed, sallow cheeks and a sickly grimace to pass for a smile. Some days she was a red head with pinked and plumped lips in an elegant sneer. Brigitte, you see, is an out-of-work actress. She has been out of work for longer than she has been in work, actually. I think her last “gig” as she calls it was as a youth eating a plate of spaghetti and grinning up at the camera for an Olive Garden commercial when she was 12. Maybe that was why she worked for Bolivar now, hoping the Italian would rub off. Just another dreamer not born in New York City but living in New York City who will die in New York City with faded New York City dreams glamour stamped feebly in worry and work creases across the face.

“Why Brigitte! Your new hair is lovely!” Bolivar beamed as she swept in. A shy flush colored her cheeks and she patted her newly blackened hair. Actually, her hair looked kind of like someone had dumped it in a coal bin. Red streaks hemmed the bottom of her smooth bun and dirty blonde peeped from the crown of her head; nothing knew what it should be.

“Two orders of Omellette di Gamberetti, three Crepes Suzette, and one Frittata Vegitariana.” She reeled off. The vegetarian dishes always made me sick.

 “Ah excellent, Beatrice, be sure to put out fresh bread on their table while they are waiting,” Bolivar enthused as he cracked eggs into a bowl.

I really don’t like Brigitte. She is one of those annoying people who crawls into your mind and doesn’t leave. I can be doing something perfectly innocent, like watching Bolivar drink his morning coffee from the tree outside his window, or ransacking the pantry for that hidden recipe box, or even just going to sleep—she keeps popping into my mind. I really wish she would not do that, as I don’t think it’s very nice of her. “Nice color Brigitte. It really brings out the color of your eyelashes and makes your nose look nice and prominent.”

Now I am never anything but nice to her. I mean, those were legitimate compliments. But somehow, Brigitte has an unearned scowl she reserves just for me.  “Why thank you, Jasper.  It’s so nice of you to spread tears of appreciation on my behalf.”

I flush angrily and turn back to my onions, chopping them so vigorously that Bolivar frowns in my direction, “Remember Jasper, treat them gently; every ingredient is a treasure, that is what makes the dish.”

“Oh yes sir, I’m sorry. I will be more careful.” I apply the knife with perfect precision, slicing through each layer. I will find the heart of each one. Brigitte. Dumb, snobby Brigitte. What does she have to feel so special about? She doesn’t really matter anyway.

Once I used to know this freckle-faced loser, not me, who used to obsess over this girl with blonde braids and red hair ribbons in 4th grade. That all ended one day at the playground, when she called him a loser and a creep and told him to stop following her. Which he wasn’t really; I mean, sure, he liked her well enough so he would watch her every now and again and maybe he knew that she always ate Raisin Bran for breakfast, had a picture of Orlando Bloom in her pencil box in her desk, and always drew her Q’s with curly ends, but any boy who likes a girl knows that. It wasn’t creepy at all. And it certainly wasn’t me. 

The day takes on its usual hum; overworked, understaffed, but every dish gets out on time, Bolivar personally checking every one before it leaves the counter. They say that’s his legacy, never ever releasing an imperfect dish from his kitchen. Watching his round belly swing back and forth between counter and stovetop, mixing, tasting—I think his real legacy will be dying of hyper-exertion.

“Jasper! We are behind. I know you are still learning here, but could take over the Calamari? Just watch it and tell me when it needs to be turned. I need to mix the vinaigrette.”

“Of course Bolivar, whatever you need!” Still learning my old grape nuts. I am good; I am really, really good. But that doesn’t ever seem to be enough for Bolivar. Not at all. He won’t even give let anyone mix his dressings, not even Bordeaux who has been here for forever. Every recipe is written down though; he says one day he will marry, have a fat little boy, and pass on his secrets. I don’t think that will really happen, since it would involve getting married and good luck in that department. It’s hard to do that when you never even leave the restaurant.

Bolivar doesn’t even have them memorized. He opens his locked box and reads the recipe every time he’s going to make something. I always wonder if he even came by them honestly in the first place, if he can’t even remember them.

I grab onion number 29 and begin peeling. I have no idea how in the world this restaurant goes through so many. Maybe Brigitte takes them home at night for part of her beauty routine. Brigitte again. Jumping into my mind. Why is she so annoying? And why does she have such a simpering smile? And why in the world does she keep trying to snub me? I am unsnubbable. People who can be snubbed are weak. Once I knew this dumb freckled kid who used to get really upset when people laughed at him for not remembering things. They ignored him. So he ignored them. I don’t think it helped anything.

“Jasper, more gently, more gently!”

More gently – that’s what the mother of this dumb freckled kid I used to know would say when he was roughing it too much in the yard or coming inside. I was always glad that kid wasn’t me. I mean, his house was a tomb. It was perfectly quiet with perfect windows and perfect doors and not a scrap of dirt touching anything. Perfect, yes. Whatever.

I came to New York City not to sit here like any other dreamer. I am good. I am the best chef you have ever seen. I’m just stuck here. I don’t know how Bolivar managed to get it so good. Let me tell you about him. 

Bolivar leads a charmed life. I know, because I’ve been watching him. He lives in a tiny apartment over the Restorante, but he swears he doesn’t want anything better. You can see right into it from the rooftop of the next place over. He gets up every morning at 4am. He stretches exactly four times, gets out of bed, brushes his teeth, feeds his little dog, and goes down to the kitchen to start the ovens. He drinks one cup of coffee with 3 lumps of sugar and exactly one half a cream. Then he sits and smiles for no particular reason while staring off into space for 15 minutes. Then, he walks into the bathroom and closes the door. He is usually there for ten minutes. Would that we all had such perfect bladders. He comes out and goes back into the kitchen. He opens up his magic box with a key and pulls out all his recipes, picks the ones he will use that day, and pours over them for an hour, making notes and annotations on all of them.

It’s that darned key I can’t figure out. His recipe box isn’t that well hidden. I mean, really, who keeps a sugar box behind tomato sauce on the top shelf of the pantry? Obvious. But that key…. he never has it in the morning, but he always has it when he goes downstairs to his box. I know he doesn’t have it in any of his pockets or around his neck while he’s sleeping. Either it’s in his bathroom or somewhere on the stairway in between. I don’t know which. All I know is he has it.

At 5:15 he gets down his knives and starts juggling them. Why? I really have no idea and since it has nothing to do with his recipes, I really don’t care. At 5:30, we all come in. After that it’s rush rush until about 3pm. Then Bolivar takes his charity walks. He goes to all these nasty houses and gives out the leftover bread from breakfast, piously proclaiming, “A fine day deserves a fine deed.” It’s a pretty good idea; everyone thinks he’s a charmer and he gives good rapport for his business. Plus, we don’t have to throw out the old bread. 5pm sharp we are slaving away again. Brigitte unlocks the door for a line of diners at 5:45 precisely. Rush rush until 10pm when the last dish is washed and we are all sent home.

“Hey Jasper, what do you think?” A beaming Bolivar shoves a spoon at me. I taste. This is the part that gets me every time. I close my eyes and savor; the vinaigrette spills over my tongue, just tangy, just sweet, just perfect. I try to quickly taste the spices, but it doesn’t ever work for me. Some people have this magic catalogue they can use to taste something and say “Why of course, that is the cilantro, the marjoram, the thyme, and the parsley; excellent.” Somehow their taste buds slide the spices apart and taste them separately. Me? I just know what tastes good together. I can’t figure out how to do it. But that’s not my fault either; I was dropped when I was a baby.

“It’s perfect sir!” I enthuse. Bolivar smiles in satisfaction, “I knew it! It will change all our salads for the next week.” I nod vigorously. “Sir, it will be a hit. The sweet and sour level is perfect. A little bit of tarragon, no?” I saw him get that one off the shelf.

“Jasper, you are a wonder! I am so pleased I hired you. You will be a chef extraordinaire.”

Maybe this would be a good in. “If I could be even half the chef of you, I would be so pleased.” A snort came from behind; I turned in time to see Brigitte hide a derisive scowl.

“What?” I asked with carefully constructed innocent curiosity, pretending not to feel the anger palpitating inside my ears.

“Oh nothing, Jasper. I am sure you will succeed at whatever you put your mind to. Bolivar, the couple on table 9 would like to personally meet you if possible. They love your food.”

“Oh of course!” Bolivar bustled out.

Brigitte glared at me as she snatched up 4 plates to carry out; she carried them with such precision in long, graceful arms… “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I know it isn’t good. And you should know that I am watching you.”

“I have no idea, dear Brigitte, what you could be talking about.”

“Yes you do. I’ve seen you sneaking around. You’re a creep. And you aren’t as nice as you act.”

My nice bone bent inside and the words were out before I could strap them down. “Oh yes, well, I suppose the one swarming in acting experience and expertise would be the expert on human character.” I bowed as she flushed, opened her mouth, and stomped away. Once the freckle-faced kid I knew learned that you could make people stop picking on them if you said mean things to them. He was right. I’m not that kid, but he was pretty smart. 

Onion 47. I think my eyes are going to fall out. I don’t have any tears left. “Jasper! When you finish the onions, I need more tomatoes chopped and a fresh salami from the back.”

“Right away Bolivar.” He’s in his element now. Shouting out order after order, and we his little minions must obey him.

“Bordeaux!” Bolivar called, “The basil has arrived. Could you put a sprig of it onto plates 1, 14, and 7 before they go out? And please keep it prepped on that side of the kitchen.” Did I mention Bolivar is deathly allergic to basil? Yeah, well, he is. One little sprig and his face will balloon up. More than that, his insides will balloon up. That’s why if something absolutely has to have basil, someone else puts it on. Once he got a cutting board that had had basil on it two days ago that someone hadn’t scrubbed closely enough (okay, okay, or maybe someone rubbed a little on the board; I sort of wondered how bad it would swell up), and he ended up in the hospital.

We closed up the whole restaurant and had a whole day off. That was an awesome day. I mean, it was sad and of course really to bad for Bolivar, but it was nice to have the day off. Brigitte and I went to a play. Okay – so maybe she went and I followed and got in and sat about 8 rows behind her, but it was pretty much the same thing. Except, I wonder if she knew I was there.

 “Jasper! I need more special sauce. Upstairs on my table in the kitchenette.” I quickly drop what I am doing and run upstairs. Bolivar often experiments with things in his apartment, so I am accustomed to run up there for ingredients. As I grab the jar I suddenly see it: the key. It’s right there on the back of the counter. Without thinking, I grab the key and stuff it in my pocket.

“Jasper! I need the sauce”

“Coming!” I race my heart back downstairs, thumping louder than my feet. I thrust the sauce into Bolivar’s hand and rush back to my corner. Potatoes there now. I tear into the sack and begin peeling furiously, my mind racing, key burning in my pocket. Now what? If I have the key, I could get the recipes tonight, hop a train tomorrow. Or should I just copy them down and wait? Would that be too suspicious? I somehow hadn’t thought past the getting the key part.

“Jasper! We need more cilantro chopped,” Bolivar yelled. “And we’re running out of dishes!” Brigitte added, “I need more silverware.”

“Jasper! More sauce on skillet nine. And the calamari need to be watched again.” And you wonder why I’m going crazy. I once knew this little freckle-faced kid, not me, who had too many brothers and sisters. He was the middle child, and he was always getting yelled at to be the local slave. Clean the kitchen. Make dinner. Weed the garden. Scrub the floorboard. Wash Dad’s car. Yeah, he was nothing but a slave. I always knew I wouldn’t be like him.

We were in the element; rush hour was at its peak and Bolivar Shurgnasty was, once again, living up to his extravagant name with an extravagant array of dishes. Then it happened. It happened so fast I wasn’t sure how it even started. Clarence pulled open the oven door and pulled out a fresh mozzarella pizza. Then there was some kind of an explosion from the back of the oven and the whole place smelled like smoke. Flames were leaping up the sides of the wall, greedily gobbling the dry wood and grease-encrusted wallpaper.

Then there was yelling. And screaming. Everyone was running outside, except for Bolivar, who was trying to throw water on the walls. “Get the customers out!” He yelled. We tried, as fast as we could, to hustle everyone out. More screaming. Have you ever tried getting 70 people to exit a restaurant in an orderly process? It’s kind of like herding cats. (Which I have also tried before, and which doesn’t work out so well).

Once we were all outside I remembered, the recipes! The whole reason I had put up with Bolivar and his cheerful hell for all those months; I couldn’t let them burn. Suddenly Bolivar yelled, “Where is Brigitte?” Looking around, I realized she was missing too.

“I’ll get her!” I yelled and ran back before anyone could stop me. The kitchen was an inferno, the flames eerily silent as they ate what should have been for people. The searing heat removed any bit of moisture in my eyes the onions hadn’t drained.

“Brigitte!” I yelled, while trying to find my way through the flames to the pantry on the right where that box was. “Where are you?”

“I’m in here!” I heard a muffled voice from the far left side of the room. At the exact same moment the middle of the roof sounded ominously.

“I’m stuck! The shelf fell down and I can’t get my leg out.” I looked at the roof and had one of those epiphany moments that only happens in movies and fake stories where time seems to freeze while I think. If I went for the recipes, I probably couldn’t get Brigitte. If I went for Brigitte, bye bye recipes. I closed my eyes and heard that freckle faced kid again listening to his teacher berate him for supposedly plagiarizing a science project on neuromuscular diseases.  (How’s a kid to know that it was too advanced work for a 10-year-old and he should have borrowed from his high school brother instead of his college brother?) “You’ll never do anything great. You’ll never be anything great. You will always choose the easy way out.”

Brigitte screamed. But she hates me. Why should I save her? She might slap in my face. Or, she might cry and hug me, her hero. Her awesome hero who saved her life. The roof creaked. I could hear those recipes begin to crackle. It’s my life dream. What’s an Arizona-based line chef supposed to do? Left or right? I picked a direction, and plunged into the flames.

**************************************************************************

It’s been a number of months since I’ve said anything, so you’re probably wondering what happened to me. Well, what happened to Jasper Bean is a good question. I think he got left behind somewhere. Currently though, a Gerald Legumbre has opened up an Italian restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia, and he’s doing really, really well. People are so impressed with his recipes, although they often wonder that few of them include basil. I mean, honestly, that Gerald guy has got it made. His restaurant is making a killing.

As for the Restorante folks, I don’t know what happened to them all. I don’t know what happened to them all. Honestly. I haven’t cared enough to pay attention. I never did like any of them. Although, I think someone randomly mentioned the other day that someone named Brigitte Foster famously survived a tragic fire in a restaurant, which gave her a spot on national television. A famous actor in New York City fell in love with her pluck and beauty and married her. He probably deserved it.

And maybe I might have read in the papers that Bolivar died yesterday though, an overdose of basil. Somehow it got into something he was tasting, but they don’t know what, since it was after hours and no one could get in. They assume he just got careless. His famous hidden recipe box, recovered safely from the fire, was opened per his will, but all that was inside were scraps of paper with pictures doodled on them. They say he must have been too proud to write them after all. For who would ever want to harm Bolivar? Who indeed. I certainly don’t know. I haven’t bothered think about it. I wouldn’t even know about it if it hadn’t have been like big news or something, because I certainly wouldn’t have looked for his name. All I can tell you is that sometimes, sometimes, the dragon wins.

"Emotions Are In Our Power"

People often ask what I do in my rhetoric classes. Well, this would be one of my seminar papers from April 2011. Although it is probably not perfect, it was one of my favorite papers I ever wrote. 

 

“The entire theory of emotion can be summed up in a single point:
that they are all in our power” ~Cicero

Healing Emotions: Editing Our Internal Rhetorics

Neurological imbalances from something ‘minor’ such as public speaking anxiety to more ‘major’ debilitating disorders such as depression and addictions have oft been defined as “modern sicknesses” that we deal with. Treatment options often include behavior modification therapy, counseling services, drug therapy, and other surgical treatments. Typically, the tendency is to focus on and treat the biological factor; what chemical will correct what imbalance in the brain? However, I feel like both the cause and solution for neurological imbalances can more often be located in the world of rhetoric and the studies of emotions. For the purpose of this paper, I will focus specifically on the neurological imbalances in phobias and addictions. At the risk of oversimplification I shall attempt a simple set of proofs: Neurological imbalances are emotionally based. Our emotions are used to create our internal rhetorics. Our internal rhetorics can be edited through dialectical exchanges. This simplified outline raises a host of complex questions, many too extensive to be answered in the limited confines of this discussion. However, I would like to briefly examine the points discussed in that equation: 1) The idea that neurological imbalances are emotionally based; 2) The idea that we create internal rhetorics through our emotions; 3) The idea that we can edit our internal rhetorics through dialectical experience.
 
Our Imbalances are Emotionally Based
    What are our emotions? Where are they located? How do they work? While centuries of debate has not yet reached a conclusive consensus on these questions, there has been sufficient dialogue and discussion that it is impossible to enter the discussion without at least detailing which doorway of reasoning one is coming in through. The one I will be using in this paper is ultimately that of the Peripatetics—emotions are good, when in balance—and are located not in the mind as “activities of the mind’s judging faculty” (Cicero xii)—as the Stoics argued—and not in the body—as the Erotics argued—but in the interplay between the body and mind.

 However, the philosophers I feel who best first described how emotions become habits or behaviors were the Stoics, specifically Cicero. Although their descriptions of emotions was written in order to devalue emotions—a point I will discuss later—the Stoics gave an invaluable description of the corollary states of the body and the mind. Cicero argues at length that infirmities to the mind are equivalent to sicknesses of the body: “Just as sicknesses and infirmities of the body come into being when the blood is impure or when there is an excess of phlegm or bile, so also the confusion of crooked opinions and the conflict of one with another robs the mind of health and disturbs it with sicknesses” (Cicero 47). In their opposition to emotion, the Stoics described in detail how an ill-used emotion can lead to a bad habit.

When a person has conceited a desire for money, and when there has been no immediate application of reason –the Socratic medicine, as it were, which might have cured that desire—then the evil works its way into the veins, and settles in the vital organs, and come to be a sickness and an infirmity. Once it has become habitual, the sickness cannot be removed, and its name is ‘greed,’ it is the same with the other sicknesses, such as desire for glory or liking for women, which arise in the same way (Cicero 48). However, while this is true of bad habits, it can also be true of good habits. Cicero talked about how emotions unchecked leads to habits. This is true, but habits checked leads to control of emotions.

If One Gets Rid of the Emotions, Does One Get Rid of the Imbalances?
One of the key ideas I will be arguing against in this paper is Cicero’s notion of the ideal state of mental health: one without pesky emotions. Cicero felt that the primary reason for sickness in the human mind was presence of emotions. Hence, the best way to remove sickness was to remove the emotions. “But the specific and more reliable cure is when you teach that the emotions are wrong in and of themselves and have nothing either natural or necessary about them” (Cicero 61). The problem is that would sort of be like removing blood from the human body when it’s infected; there would be no human left afterwards. Simply “not having emotions” is not something our minds are equipped to do. As Aristotle pointed out, “the emotions are intermediate between our characteristically human rationality and our more plantlike functions such as digestion and growth” (Cicero xvii). We are not simply plants; we are human beings who breathe, live, love, laugh, cry, and live through a plethora of emotions that I would argue we wouldn’t be able to lose without losing some quality of life.

While getting rid of pesky emotions altogether is sometimes an attractive proposal, it’s not the most practical. Addictions are a good example of how trying to remove oneself from emotion is not necessarily successful. Cicero might suggest that, as a mental illness, addictions come from access of emotions and the solution simply is to withdraw from emotions. However, that ignores a basic tenant of addictions: people with addictions are typically described as attempting to numb some sort of emotion, to withdraw to a state where they can be in better control. In addition, people with addictions are frequently seeking to bring balance to a perceived inner imbalance. For example, someone with bulimia might be trying to fill a hole inside, a hole where sweetness is missing. Someone with anorexia may be trying to prove that he or she is a ‘good person” by creating strongly polarized behaviors to identify her as good or bad. Someone who cuts often is trying to make their outside appearance match the ugly they feel inside. Someone with drinking may be trying to numb the extra pain to a manageable level, or find a sense of a high “everything is right” feeling that they can’t find elsewhere in their life. Someone who is OCD might be trying to exert order into a life they feel they otherwise cannot control.
The premise I am drawing from is in line with Jack Katz’s, “Emotions, which have so often been treated as opposed to thinking, are paradoxically self-reflective actions and experiences…Through our emotions, we reach back sensually to grasp the tacit, embodied foundations of ourselves” (Katz 7). Emotions are not, as Cicero argued, the inhibitors of our judging capacities. Rather, they embody our ability to judge. We are human beings, and our ability to reason is based on the fact that we have more complex emotions with which to judge. We use our emotions as judgments to write our “emotional strategies for engaging with the world” (Solomon 3).

If emotions are, as Aristotle argued, located in the interplay between mind and body, then our mind creates a series of strategies or beliefs, which could be referred to as internal rhetoric. The problem that comes in is when our emotions become unbalanced, and we write our internal rhetorics to reflect that imbalance, hence mis-writing the behaviors that follow the directions our bodies in some ways “read” from our internal rhetorics. Phobias are good examples of this principle. They are often learned reactions to an emotionally charged moment that influence our behavior going forward, such as learning to be terrified of spiders because another you respect is terrified of emotions, or from being startled by a crawling sensation. That learned reaction then becomes part of the individual’s experience, or internal rhetoric. Hence, the conclusion that can be seen is one that will be made throughout the paper: individuals experience life through their emotions, write those emotions into “strategies” or internal rhetoric, and then follow through with behaviors that mirror those internal rhetorics.

Internal Rhetoric: Created Through our Experience
Jean Niencamp coined the term internal rhetoric to refer to Kenneth Burke’s terministric screen, or, “the rhetorical nature of internal thought…Internal rhetoric’ is thus a lens through which to study mental activity rather than a reference to a particular kind of activity” (Niencamp ix). Rather than simply refer to it as the screen, however, for the purpose of this paper I am defining internal rhetoric as our inner set of core beliefs and values. “I am good at sports” or “if I go and try hard enough, I can solve this math problem” or “snakes will kill me” or “I cannot be rich because my parents were not rich” or “I am not good at math because people laughed at me when I was in 2nd grade and failed a problem in front of everyone.” Each of us has a set of beliefs and sets of dialogue that in many ways pre-determine our reactions to the world around us, sets of beliefs that have been written through our emotional engagements with the world. Those beliefs further influence all of our actions. For example, I have been encouraged through the accolades of friends and family that my piano skills are amazing. I have similarly been encouraged that my handwriting is atrocious. Therefore, on my inner walls, I identify as being a pretty decent pianist, but terrible at handwriting. In a public situation, I would be much happier to play piano for a group than I would be to write on the whiteboard. I would be embarrassed if I messed up on piano, since I expect myself to be good at it, but I would suffer very little embarrassment if I were to write sloppishly on the board, since it’s something I already know that I am bad at and feel no anxiety to perform well over.

Our internal rhetoric covers more than what we think we are good or aren’t good. It also includes our deep beliefs about life. I believe that this is predominantly a good world with good people who mess up a lot. My brother believes this is predominantly a bad world with bad people who occasionally get it right. I believe that if I push myself, I will feel accomplished with what I have done. My brother feels that if he pushes himself, he will just feel tired. Our internal rhetoric also includes our strategies for dealing with the world. If someone yells at me, I feel that person therefore probably is having a bad day and the best strategy is for me to walk away. Were someone to yell at my brother, he would probably assume that person had some serious grievance with him and he would take the strategy of becoming angry in response and confronting that person. Perceptions of levels of perfectionism, control, and so on—all the inner beliefs and values we have make up the writing on our internal walls, our internal rhetoric.

As we are in situations, we use our internal rhetorics to understand how to negotiate them. Sometimes we will have to go through multiple sets of possible responses before finding one that works. A child trying to persuade a parent is a good example of this, trying, perhaps, wheedling, coaxing, threating, or yelling at terms in effort to reach a goal. As some approaches work, or as some beliefs are affirmed, we edit the walls of our internal rhetoric accordingly. We are constantly “editing” the walls of our experience. Internal rhetorics include long-term and short-term beliefs and strategies. Some parts of our internal rhetoric become so core that they consistently stay the same. There are other parts that are fluid. For example, my belief that the world is a good place is a fairly core, permeating belief. However, a belief that no one working at the DMV would ever be pleasant to speak to could quickly be changed by one encounter with one nice receptionist who would force me to invalidate that assumption. The belief that my handwriting is terrible could change were I to take a class, perhaps, and significantly improve it. The fluid parts of our walls are not such an issue. The challenges are the internal core pieces that become “stuck” in the damning “habits” Cicero refers to.

Cicero felt that any emotion we had, when repeated, could become a habit. For example, reacting with anger to someone on one occasion could prove successful to that person’s goal. Hence, that emotion of anger would be validated as useful to that person (although perhaps not to others around that person), and that person would, over a period of time, develop the damning habit of being an angry person. That belief or strategy would then be written on the walls of our internal rhetoric or experience, burned into our being as core rhetoric through repetition.

Internal rhetorics are not completely written by nurture; there are experiences, and then there are individual natures that interact with those experiences. Some people may be pre-disposed by nature or by circumstance to one set of internal rhetoric or another, writing completely different internal rhetorics in the same situation. For example, I might share the experience of the dark room with shadows with a brother, and I while I would be terrified, he might just shrug. Cicero talked about this as “proclivities,” where,

Some people are more prone than others to contract certain sicknesses… such as certain people we say ‘suffer from sinus; or ‘suffer from colic; meaning not that they are suffering from it now but that they often do. In the same way, some people are more prone to fear and others to other emotions. ….there is a difference between suffering from anxiety and feeling anxious…A tendency toward the bad should be called a ‘proclivity’ to suggest falling into error (Cicero 48).

Although Cicero was referring to these tendencies as negative, they can also be positive. Just as someone could be an ‘anxious’ person, so could someone be stoic or happy. We all have tendencies that can be developed in different ways just as we all have different muscle capacities. It might not be as easy for me as it would be for my brother to make those ripping biceps. All of us can, though, control those internal rhetorics, and, I will later argue, we have the ethical responsibility to do so. This raises the question: if we gain sets of beliefs based on our experiences and our reactions to our experiences, and if we can change those rhetorics based on our initiatives to some sort of ideal state, what would the ideal internal rhetoric be?

What is the Ideal Internal Rhetoric?
This is a rather complex question. As referenced earlier, Cicero’s method of ideal balance was very simple: get rid of emotions altogether. However, simply “not having emotions” is not something our minds are equipped to do. Our internal rhetoric needs emotions in order to be written and followed. For present, I will simply say that I fall in with the Peripatetics, the school of thought Aristotle established, who felt that every mind should experience lots of types of emotions but should “set a ‘limit’ beyond which one should not proceed” (53). Every emotion has value, and the ability not to have an emotion, as Robert C. Solomon would say, “is a vice” just as much as feeling too much of an emotion (Solomon 13). There needs to be an ideal balance of emotions. If we must have emotions to be balanced, the question this raises is, again, what is the ideal set of emotions?

The problem is that there is no perfect set. That perfect set could alter significantly depending on an individual’s gender, age, social standing, religion, family, situation, location, and a myriad of other factors. Two individuals in one room may have completely different appropriate beliefs and values for their circumstance. A CEO of a company sitting with a contractor for a building bid would need to have completely different beliefs about what each was or wasn’t good at in order for there to be balance in their negotiations. Hence, there is not necessarily one “ideal slate” that everyone should come back to. The ideal is to have the balance of emotions that enables you to live the most productive life that you can live. Depending on the society and individual circumstances of each individual, that ideal balance may differ. The important thing is to do the internal evaluation necessary to write the internal rhetoric that enables each individual to “live the good life,” whatever that “good life” may be. How then, can any individual “edit” his or her internal rhetoric? Is it possible?

Negotiating that ideal rhetoric is a very dialectic process, involving interacting with different models and individuals. We edit our internal rhetorics through third-party interactions and their external rhetorics, ultimately selecting our internal rhetorics through the process of emotionally identifying and disidentifying with others in, as Daniel M. Gross argued, the process of learning to see the “available means of persuasion,” or learning to see what can be otherwise (Gross 13). The way we come to understand individual problems and deal with them is through rhetoric, using external rhetoric to edit our internal rhetoric. As Niencamp argues, we all have our own series of internal thoughts and emotions, but it is through interacting with other “rhetorics” that we edit our own, in a term that I will refer to as “third-party rhetoric.”


Third-party Rhetoric: Can We ‘Edit’ Our Internal Rhetoric?
    Third party rhetoric can come in many forms; friends, family, literature, music, self-journaling—there are many forms of it. Any set of beliefs or emotions, whether contained within another individual or within a piece of art, makes up a separate third-party rhetoric. While we can never completely understand another third party’s rhetoric, by attempting to imaginatively identify with parts of that rhetoric, we complicate our understandings and perceptions and have to resolve where they conflict with our own. This process of resolving re-aligns our thinking and helps us learn to see what can be otherwise. In essence, Aristotle taught that we need to learn the available means of persuasion for persuading others, but we are also learning the available means of persuasion for persuading ourselves.

The process of learning to see what can be otherwise is the process of identification; we have to imagine what could be different before we can accept a different set of thinking. We balance complex emotions by observing particular models and identifying with them or disidentifying with them. When a child skins his or her knee, he looks to the parent to understand how to react to the situation. If someone he admires tells him to man up, he will do so, because he wants to identify with that person. The principle of disidentification is similar. A teenage girl who comes to school and wants to identify with a group of girls will copy those emotions, perhaps learning to dislike the things that group dislikes or like the same things. The process of identifying or disidentifying with someone is trying to “read” their internal rhetoric, and in that process individuals inevitably edit their own.

Literature, music, film, and similar sources function similarly as third-party rhetorics. Each piece contains a certain set of beliefs from the creator that the person experiencing them will end up juxtaposing against that viewer’s individual emotions. The views could simplify or complicate that individual’s experience, but there will always be a change. For example, when I first saw a film on the story of Job, I was forced to re-examine my understanding of what should and should not make me angry. I watched what happened to Job and I expected that he should be angry. When he chose not to be angry, it surprised me. Up until that moment I had identified my internal rhetoric with that of the Job. From what I understood, he had every right to be angry. From my internal rhetoric, the script was matching. But, Job chose not to be angry. He chose to praise God instead. That blew my mind. And in expanding my viewpoint to try and understand his, it changed my internal rhetoric. From that point on, I no longer had the “someone has wronged me, I shall be angry” equation. I had to consider what could be otherwise. Perhaps I could choose not to be angry. My internal rhetoric might not be right.
When we try to identify with other situations, we can learn other ways of thinking we hadn’t thought of. Most of us are so convinced in the authority of our own internal thoughts that changing them rarely happens on our own; most of us require a third-party rhetoric to help us edit our understanding. The process of experiencing other third-party rhetorics through dialectical exchange and editing our internal rhetorics is one we all participate in every day. For most people, it becomes a natural process as they go through life and education, finding their stereotypes and understandings complicated by those they meet. They learn new strategies for dealing with emotions and situations and develop balanced behaviors accordingly.

However, not everyone acquires this process naturally, which is where those who do have extra responsibility. Whether through limits in their social experience or their nature, some people do not naturally experience third-party rhetoric. Not all are exposed to great literature or examples of people who can jog their internal rhetoric to learn what could be otherwise. That is where the responsibility of a rhetorician comes in. We have the responsibility, as trained rhetors, to help those around us in particular, to help others learn to engage in what could be otherwise. That doesn’t mean we are little doctors who need to run around prescribing wonder medicine, but it does mean that in situations, perhaps a volatile work or home situation where someone is angry, or where someone is hurt, we have a particular responsibility to remember that the job is not to force someone to change their behavior, but let them see what can be otherwise.

This approach is particularly useful when applied to addictions. Addictions fall neatly into what Cicero referred to as imbalances of the mind. Addictions can be called coping mechanisms or escapisms, but all they really are is someone trying to work through something they don’t understand. They are using the substances or behaviors they have selected as a third-party, something to use to control their emotions when they can’t understand how else to balance them. The problem with a substance such as alcohol or a OCD-type behavior is that they don’t contain internal rhetorics; an individual may go back to those substances over and over again, but those substances will not teach the individual how to edit his or her internal rhetoric to heal the emotional wounds inside. Third-party dialectic helps put the pieces together to help people suffering from addictions learn what should be otherwise.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy: Third-Party Rhetoric for Healing
    As illustration of the power of third-party rhetoric for editing our internal rhetorics, I would like to briefly look at dialectical behavior therapy. As described by Dr. Lineman, “Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), a derivative of cognitive behavior therapy, helps patients identify thoughts, beliefs and assumptions that make their lives challenging and then learn different ways of thinking and reacting” (Times). DBT is a brilliant example of how rhetoric can be used for a type of illness that is otherwise typically treated chemically: borderline personality disorder. Dialectical behavior therapy draws from the principles Wayne C. Booth describes of building a shared metaphor through listening rhetoric (Booth 83). Through actively listening, and describing the words back to the patient, the therapist uses words to help people negotiate their tangled personal and emotional lives to build healthy relationships inside the minds, where, as Cicero describes, our minds have potential to be as healthy as our bodies.

    Dr. Lineman explains that borderline personality disorder is really just a more severe form of what many of us already experience to one degree or another: a thin emotional skin. People with borderline personality disorder have an over-reactive amygdala—the part of the brain that experiences emotions—while the part of the brain that reins in emotions is underactive. The process of DBT is similar to teaching a patient with new legs to walk—it’s a process of helping someone actively think through why they feel certain ways, why they respond to certain situations, and suggesting different ways to both see and approach certain situations. It’s a process that many of us naturally go through as children (though, like walking, we may forget it a bit as we get older and less flexible). She says, “You problem is you don’t know how to regulate yourself, and I can teach you how” (Times.)

    An individual going through treatment may go through a case scenario or, “dialectical dilemma” (Miller 3). The individual would then go through the manual process of what many of us already do naturally. The therapist will put the individual in a situation that would normally make the person anxious.

“Okay, you will be going into a room full of people. How do you feel?”
“Terrified.”
“Okay, why do you feel that way? Has anything in the past happened to make you feel that way?”
“Last week I went to my friend’s house and there was a party. When I walked in everyone laughed at me.
“Okay, why would they laugh at you?”
“I don’t know. Probably because I looked funny.”
“Is it possible that there was just laughing happening in the room and you assumed you were being laughed at?”
“Maybe. But what if they were laughing at me?”
“Okay, let’s look at it that way. If they were laughing at you, how can that hurt you? What will the danger be?”

While that example is stilted from a prompt book, it shows the point of an external rhetoric: the individual had identified the laughter as directed at him, and was responding with that appropriate emotional reaction, anger and fear, which led that individual to become afraid and not able to remain in the room. The patient, however, was not able to recognize his own internal rhetoric. He could not see the links between his behavior and his beliefs. So, the therapist helped the patient talk through “what could be otherwise” or other possibilities for emotionally understanding the process. In this example, included, would be both recognizing what could be otherwise—either a) the situation or b) the response. This process empowers the patient to examine very minutely his internal rhetoric and re-write both his emotional beliefs about the situation and his potential actions in the situation.
DBT functions, then, as a third-party rhetoric for helping edit individual experience. DBT is fascinating because in so many ways, it’s what our minds are already equipped to do: deal with and negotiate our experience. However, by being aware of how DBT works, it can help anyone in turn recognize the process by which he or she individually deals with things and find the spots where maybe we ourselves in turn could do with a little empowering and re-thinking of our situations. In some ways, it could be referred to as the “reflection” component Robert C. Solomon referred to, “Our emotions are already infected by reflection and self-consciousness. It is only a question of how crude or articulate are the concepts that make up our emotional judgments and with which we identify and describe them…And this reflection and self-consciousness will be definitive of those emotions” (227). What DBT does is help re-build the internal rhetoric by seeing what can be otherwise. It helps us identify what our internal rhetoric says and heal cracks and schisms by re-writing any writing on our inner walls that is not conducive to us living “the good life.”

Ethical Responsibility of Emotions: To Control Them
While important for helping someone with an addiction or serious imbalance, such as Cicero described, being able to consider and evaluate our emotional responses and consider what can be otherwise are valuable skills for all of us to learn. There is a role for third-party rhetoric in everyone’s life. In today’s fragmented culture seamed with many emotional imbalances, from many causes, the issue of personal responsibility is fairly controversial. For example, if an individual is abused and has broken understanding, is the individual really responsible for their understanding? How much responsibility do we have over our emotions when we didn’t control the situations that prompted those emotions? Having worked over and over again with individuals who have reacted differently to very traumatic events, including sexual abuse, physical abuse, severe personal losses, and addictions, I have come to very firmly belief the answer is yes. With the Stoics, I believe that we have been endowed with the ability to reason. And because of that ability to reason, we have the ability to change and determine our internal rhetorics. Our emotions are in many ways in our control. It would be impossible, I think, to overgeneralize and say all emotions are in our control and everyone has the capacity to control his or her emotions. However, most of us, I think, have more control than we realize or give ourselves credit for.

Imbalances in the emotions are written into our internal rhetoric. They then show up in our behaviors. Our behaviors are useful for focusing us into where our emotions are imbalanced. If I am yelling at a family member who didn’t do anything to me, that should be a cue for me to self-reflect and realize who else I was angry at. If an individual were to start stress eating or were becoming paralyzed with fear of speaking to someone, an emotion is imbalanced somewhere. That imbalance can then be traced back to a place in the internal rhetoric where that emotion became a learned reaction. As individuals, we then have the opportunity or responsibility to edit those beliefs when they are brought to our attention. Although this is certainly not a perfect system, it’s a system of self-reflection and identification that we go through all the time. And it is hoped that by being self-aware of this system, we can ultimately have better control over our emotions and reactions. Additionally, we can understand how to help others be aware of their own rhetorics and help those who struggle work through their internal rhetorics. As Cicero said, “The entire theory of emotion can be summed up in a single point: that they are all in our power.”

Works Cited
Booth, Wayne C. Rhetoric of Rhetoric: The Quest for Effective Communication. Hoboken: Wiley-
Blackwell, 2004. Print.
Brody, Jane E. “An Emotional Hair Trigger, Often Misread.” New York Times. Jun. 15 2009. Web. Apr.
15 2011.
Cicero. Cicero on the Emotions: Tusculan Disputations 3 and 4. Trans. Margaret Graver. Chicago,
University of Chicago Press, 2002. Print.
Gross, Daniel M. The Secret History of Emotion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Print.
Katz, Jack. How Emotions Work. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Print.
Miller, Alec L., Jill H. Rathus, Marsha Lineman. Dialectical Behavior Therapy with Suicidal Adolescents.
New York: Guilford Press, 2006. Print.
Niencamp, Jean. Internal Rhetorics: Towards a History and Theory of Self-Persuasion. Carbondale: SIU
Press, 2001. Print.
Solomon, Robert C. True To Our Feelings. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Print.