Awareness

One thing that David Simon did well in his talk at Loyola College was that he bluntly raised awareness of the social problems that exist in America today. “The Cask of Amontillado”, “My Last Duchess”, “Ode to American English”, and “America” are all works of literature that, in different ways, deal with awareness. Awareness in this sense means one’s knowledge of his surroundings. Often times, people become comfortable in their own situations or cultures and they forget to look at what is going on around them. They get caught up in their own lives, their own feelings, and they are blinded to the outside world. The readings mentioned above, as well as David Simon’s talk, all express different stages of awareness, but they all offer a somewhat cynical look at people’s understanding of their world.
David Simon’s talk exhibited a great amount of awareness of the problems in society. In his talk, however, he emphasized the prevalence of those who are comfortable with what they have and who are not attuned to the problems of society. One of his major examples was of the rich movie makers of Los Angeles. He said that they make movies that dehumanize the poor criminals when they never, ever venture into the poor neighborhoods of Los Angeles to gain a better understanding of those they portray in their movies. The wealthy, he says, are blinded to reality because of their comfort in their own lives and their unwillingness to open their eyes.
Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess” shows that the Duke’s awareness is very similar to the wealthy in Simon’s talk. The Duke is an arrogant man, speaking of his “nine-hundred-years-old name” (Browning, 33) as if it means more than anything. He ends up killing his wife because she was very thankful for complements and gifts. She smiled at the sunset (Browning, 25), “the bough of cherries some officious fool/ broke in the orchard for her, (and) the white mule/she rode with round the terrace” (Browning, 26-28). These are tangible things; they are beautiful things. The Duke, however, believes that the gift of his name exceeds these gifts because of the symbol of its power, not for its beauty. He gets angry with his wife because he does not understand why she gets happy. Thus, he lacks the awareness to understand where his wife gets her pleasure and this lack of awareness leads to her death.
The closing lines of “America”, by Tony Hoagland, describe “rivers of bright merchandise (running) past you/ and you are floating in your pleasure boat upon this river” (Hoagland, 31-32). This statement shows a person caught up in his own pleasure, unaware of the world around him, much like the Duke. However, the next lines describe the person seeing “others drowning underneath you” (Hoagland, 33); it shows that the person is, to a certain extent, aware of the suffering of others. The problem, though, is that this person “turns the volume higher” (Hoagland, 36) and ignores those underneath him. This situation applies to those who are aware of the world’s problems, but they do not exert any effort to help because they are caught up in their own lives.
In “Ode to American English”, by Barbara Hamby, the speaker shows an outsider’s look at American culture. Since Americans can be caught up in their own lives, they can be lost in the increasingly less formal culture. The speaker provides a somewhat unbiased view from the outside, although she really is American. She sarcastically speaks of “missing” things such as “the inability of 90% of the population/to get the past perfect” (Hamby, 15-16) and “the ubiquitous Valley Girl’s/like-like stuttering, shopaholic rant” (Hamby, 26-27). The speaker shows how ridiculous the culture can be. It is a culture that many people get lost in. The poem’s speaker plays the role of the educated outsider, much like David Simon himself, who has taken a step back and seen the big picture.
The narrator in “The Cask of Amontillado”, by Edgar Allen Poe, comes to understand the effects of his actions when he seals Fortunato in a small underground room. The confident and assured narrator unhesitatingly lures Fortunato into the underground cellar without hesitation. When he is close to done with his task of building the wall, he starts to get nervous. Once Fortunato stops responding, the narrator “(grows) impatient” (Poe, 804) and his “heart (grows) sick” (Poe, 804). He must “hasten to make an end of (his) labor” (Poe, 804). Thus, as the story has progressed, the narrator has become more aware of his actions and what their effect will be. One wonders if he has been able to find peace after what he has done.
Awareness is a major theme in these works of literature. The attempt to spread awareness was also a very important part of David Simon’s talk. The authors hope to spread awareness of unacceptable parts of society or of life.