Hi, my name is Nick Hilbourn, professional English major. Anyone who watches any of the major TV networks (C-Span, BookTV, PBS) knows that literary criticism is an always-changing field of inquiry. In the past fifty years, all kinds of new fields of study have arisen, such as post-colonialism, queer theory, disability studies, and other useless fields of study.
But none of it makes a difference in society.
In the words of President Barack Obama, that's got to "change."
It takes only a few seconds to see that Sir Thomas' silence is the result of the shocking realization that he just shit his pants.Try as they might, these literary "theories" don't speak to the people, they don't invigorate the masses. Anybody know what a post-colonial is? Ever seen one on the street? Anyone ever paid their bills with a queer theory? Anybody fixed the hinge on their bomb shelter door with a disability studies? The answer to two-thirds of these questions is NO.
A big resounding, quick-slap-in-the-private-parts "NO."
I spent all winter fasting from steady employment in order to bring myself to a higher spiritual plane so that I could introduce a new kind of criticism. One that would, in the words of O.J. Simpson, change the "game." It is my pleasure to introduce you to the new and exciting field of Fecal Criticism.
Sometimes you have to ruffle some feathers to make progress.
Already you're stumped. You look to me longingly with that oh-I-wish-I-hadn't-majored-in-engineering-like-an-asshole.
I can't help you there, but I'll do my best to explain.
You see, what critics of Western literature have failed to address is the very blatant implication of defecation (or "pooping" for the engineering majors) in some of the keystone works of Western literature. Only a book with a billion pages (at least) could give the full phallic thrust of my theory, but what I can offer are examples of the praxis of my idea ("praxis," for those of you who don't know, is a very difficult word that most people don't use).
As a young man, I became aware of the implied presence of defecation when my father would lock me in the bathroom after finishing his morning constitutional meeting with "Congressman John Brown." There was no poop there; yet, it was there by its very absence.
I cannot thank him enough for this insight.
Let me give a literary example. Turn to whatever page it is in Othello where Iago exits after giving his first monologue. I'm sure when you first read this you think, "Okay, he left…so…what's he doing?"
We're told not to worry about this. Typical elitist move. (It means they don't know.)
But I will worry about it. Because I know. He's taking a dump. The first lines of his monologue are practically screaming this: "Farewell; I must leave you:/ It seems not meet or wholesome to my place/ to be produced-as if I stay I shall—/Against the Moor" These lines are covered in fecal matter. Consider his opening line: "Farewell; I must leave you:"… so, he "must"? Something's urgent there. "It seems not meet or wholesome to my place": whatever he's got to do, he DOESN'T think it will be helpful in public; rather, he has to go to "my place." Otherwise, something will be "produced… Against the Moor"…hmm, is this really a dramatic conspiracy against Othello that Iago reveals at the beginning of the play?
Far from it. Basically, Iago doesn't want to shit all over Othello.
Why is this important? Because Iago defecates more than any other person in the play. Obviously, he has an over-active digestive tract and that's why he's so nasty all the time. He knows that, pretty soon, he'll have to hurry off and defecate in some primordial hole in the ground. (Go figure. It was the Elizabethean period. They probably had to dig their own holes, too.) He obviously doesn't have anything against Othello. That's why he left in the first place. After all, he doesn't want to take a dump on him. He cares very much for him, but not in a gay way. Just in a normal friends way, and friends don't shit on your face. That's not what friends do.
Anyway.
See how I just blew this play up for you? You'll never look at Othello the same again.
Now on to a literary classic: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. I have a bone to pick with so-called "post-colonial theorist" Ed Said. He argues that this whole mess about Sir Thomas Bertram going to these "slave plantations" in "Antigua" is what defines the whole novel.
Thanks, Ed, but I think that's a bit of a stretch. Your literary "theory" doesn't hold and will be trumped by my literary "fact." Instead of theorizing that he goes to Antigua, how about the more rational fact that he's taking a six-month-long dump? (I can't believe how obvious this is! I'm completely getting tenure. Praxis!)
Let's go further. A tasty little tidbit for some so-called intellectuals is when Fanny Price says that after asking Sir Thomas about the slave trade, "there was dead silence." The easy way out for most intellectuals is to squabble about Third World-this and postcolonial-that. Really? It takes only a few seconds to see that Sir Thomas' silence is the result of the shocking realization that he just shit his pants.
Read on, reader. READ ON.
Finally, let's take a look at Moby Dick by Herman Melville. This little gem has gotten a whole hell of a lot of attention over the past thirty years and yet, people have no idea how to read it.
Know that scene where Pip gets swept off the boat?
Everybody has their theories on it. Know what really happened?
He was number two-ing.
Captain Ahab's so uptight and all these academic hotshots (snobs) speculate about his psychological motivations, but they'd save about three chapters if they'd just come to grips with the fact that it's a fecalogical motivation that's got Ahab grinding his teeth.
The big white whale? Notice something interesting about the word "white"? It's only one letter off from "shite," which is basically "shit," which is basically Captain Ahab's whole problem: he's constipated. Furthermore, it pisses him off that Pip CAN excrete. The whole conflict of this classic work of American literature can be explained in less than a page. Imagine that. No class conflict unless you count the ability or inability to shit as a class conflict (here, I'm willing to have a conversation).
The last thing I want to do is fill the internet with unnecessary praxis, but I really must encourage further work in this area. What's not said is just as important as what is said. We can easily read silence and absence in political terms, but let's be realistic.
Are we born political or pooping? Pooping. It's the closest thing to us and I encourage all critics who supposedly wish to uphold the humanitarian tradition of literary criticism to start reading novels as if they were written by humans—who poop.