Truth-Tellers
My new favourite Shakespeare heroine is Emilia from Othello. While poor Desdemona spends her dying breath refusing to speak a word against her husband, Emilia starts talking and doesn't stop. All through Act V she blisters the men with her tongue, raking Othello over the coals for mistreating his wife and exposing Iago's evil schemes while he splutters things like, "Go to!" and "Zounds, hold your peace!"
"I peace?" Emilia retorts, "No, I will speak as liberal as the north. / Let heaven and men and devils, let them all, / All, all cry shame against me, yet I'll speak."
Emilia is a truth-teller - she blazes with the truth that is burning on her tongue. At the end of the play she lies dead on the bed alongside Desdemona and Othello - but her words have torn down the whole edifice of Iago's deception and set the world to rights again.
Anne of Green Gables is another truth-teller. She believes God might be more interested in Superintendent Bell's prayers if he would just spice them up a bit. She tells Mrs. Rachel Lynde - to her face - that she's fat, ugly, and rude.
Of course, Mrs. Rachel is a truth-teller herself, a woman who prides herself on speaking her mind, but she is the more conventional kind of truth-teller - the kind for whom telling the truth is a thinly veiled excuse for gossiping, interfering, and bossing people around. The most powerful truth-tellers, the ones whose freedom radiates from them most visibly, are the ones whose truth is something more than mere malice.
In The Blue Castle, Valancy Stirling becomes a truth-teller when a doctor informs her she has less than a year to live. Freed from a lifetime of kowtowing to her many aunts and uncles, Valancy starts to operate without an interior monologue, saying whatever comes into her head. To be sure, some of the things she has to say aren't very nice: she accuses her relatives of being evil-minded gossips and makes an unflattering allusion to the number of Aunt Isabel's chins. But my favourite remarks are her random observations: "'People who don't like cats,' said Valancy, attacking her dessert with a relish, 'always seem to think there is some particular virtue in not liking them.'"
If you could switch off your inner censor - if you really didn't care what other people think - what would you say?
23 good cooperations:
Sadly, I think I would give more compliments, because I would no longer be afraid of looking craven or being rejected.
I don't know. I don't know what that woman would be like because I can't image not caring what people think.
But if you gave me licence, right now, for one try at it, I would probably tell the USA that they need to vote Obama in or they are going to disappoint a lot of Canadians. As a nice polite Canadian, I wouldn't interfere in their business, otherwise.
If I didn't care what people thought, I probably wouldn't bother to speak!
An interesting question. I would probably talk about myself more--I'm always worried about sounding self-centered. Is that wrong?
Sadly(?), I think I have already lost my filter. I've reached granny status (speak your mind and mind your manners) at the ripe old age of 31! I've always been one to clear the air rather than hold a grudge. That being said, I'd probably speak up more at work if I knew it wouldn't inhibit my career.
lol at mary g...and at Valancy on cats. touche.
i think if i were truly freed from my vague suspicion that other people's truth might be just as valid as mine, i'd turn into some awful Rachel Lynde character with a good heart but a petty, righteous tongue. or maybe i'm that already. :)
Just call me Rachel Lynde already, although I am sure that in my mind I am Emilia all the way.
When you wrote your vegephobe post a couple of weeks ago I almost commented to say that I love plants but I loathe ALL animals, but then I thought better of it because polite people don't say such things.
I would like cats if they didn't make me sick but there it is. Are allergies a virtue? Is terror in the face of the unpredictable nature of dogs a virtue? Is resentment that gold fish can't stop shitting a virtue? Is hatred for squirrels and their bad garden manners a virtue? Are snake-induced heebie-jeebies a virtue?
Also, if I were to remove my inner censor, I would scream to a lot of people, "it's just a friggin' animal already; it's not a child. It does not need a jacket and NO YOU SHOULD NOT DRESS IT UP FOR HALLOWEEN OR GIVE IT A CHRISTMAS STOCKING."
How's that for stirring the waters?
BTW, I think my dislike of animals is genetic. Miss M is terrified to the point tears of all critters on this green earth. She almost pitched herself into the Halifax habour a while back because of the pigeons on the pier.
I would probably stop pretending that I don't know something--I am always worried about being accused of being haughty because I read fast / have a PhD / keep up on current events, etc. So I bite down a lot of 'I read about that and here's more facts' or 'yes, but did you know that another group showed that' or 'if you do it like that it's going to break'. So I would stop hiding my smarts.
Mad, you're making me laugh so hard.
Well, I'd say what I just posted on my blog.
Great post.
Also, do you know the excellent line in Sarah Plain and Tall wherein Sarah in one of her early courtship letters to the farmer writes the ambiguous line: "Do you have an opinion on cats? I have one."
Would that be a beautiful use of zeugma?
I think if I told the full unadulterated truth more often, I would be found to be much more of an extremist in my opinions. I give the general impression of being "middle of the road" because I'm afraid to offend (and sometimes afraid to disagree).
Btw, if you are teaching Othello, you really should read the play "Desdemona: a play about a hankerchief" by Paula Vogel. I think you would find it terribly interesting.
I've been working on telling more of the truth more of the time for the past few years. It's still not always easy, and it's easier online than it is in real life, especially when it comes to expressing opinions that might be controversial.
If I really didn't care what people thought, I would have been much less diplomatic a few minutes ago when a church friend asked me about Obama's and McCain's stance on gay marriage, assuming that as good Christian I would, like her, favour the candidate that opposed gay marriage.
A world without self-censorship...I have no idea.
I suspect I'd have a bit more to say to grown women who feel the need to wear jeans that expose at least half their bottoms when they bend over. Really. I don't need to see that.
I would probably embarrass my mother a lot more than I already do. I'd drop the f-bomb all the time and tell people to buy their children shoes that fit! I'd stick a quarter in every butt crack I saw and ask people if walking a rat on a leash is fun- and then I'd say why don't you get a big dog- you wanker! I'd also actually say these words to people who find it necessary to talk about the size and shape and color of my children: WHY DO YOU THINK IT IS OK FOR YOU TO SAY THAT TO ME?
hmmm- I must still be on some sort of high from last night. Sorry.
I shudder to think about myself with even LESS of an internal censor. Good Lord.
ah I am so glad beck's comment makes me feel better about saying that I don't think I really have enough of a censor for most people's liking.
I'd be able to be natural with people, rather than constantly struggling to say what I'm thinking - to show a bit of personality and not come off as so wooden... I'd be less shy, I guess.
I would be as genuinely enthusiastic about things as I am, without worrying that I am coming across as fake or too much of a geek/not cool enough.
Great question! (and I mean a couple of exclamation marks, but I will satisfy myself with one).
i love the role of Emilia. in fact, the side-kick female rolls in Shakespeare plays are often kick-ass.
I actually had to teach myself to become more polite. Less of a truth-teller. It took me ages and a bit of coaching by my husband to see what other people might be thinking of me. I was quite oblivious for years. (And not that pleasant to be around, I might add.)
i'd rather put the question to you, o lady of enigmas.
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