These letters, how they come together to make words, how the words are strung like beads into sentences, how these sentences are carefully arranged, slowly constructed into paragraphs. How these paragraphs are placed with caution in a deliberate, systematic order.
The effect is aesthetically pleasing, isn't it? Like a picture.
Oh, what a tasteful arrangement of symbols!
Dear goodness, yes! So elegant, so simple! Genius, of course.
HA! I laugh. You laugh to, if you've ever read or written or heard anything worthwhile. Words are not pretty.
Words are powerful.
I was reminded of this yesterday while shopping, of all things. I am actually not fond of shopping. Quite the opposite in fact: the mall gives me sensory overload and usually I end up in Borders Express, “sampling” books (or cheating the bookseller by reading them and not buying them...). Anyhow, my mother decided, after realizing that I was still wearing jeans she had bought me in 7th grade, that it was time to expand my denim collection, so she dragged me with her to engage in a day of horror, aka shopping. Anyhow, I finally found a pair of jeans that fit me, and I was very excited, because that means I could leave the mall. My mother, however, had other ideas, and brought me a shirt to try on. I was substantially opposed to this idea. However, being the smart cookie that she is, my mom told me that if I tried on the shirt she wouldn't make go shopping with her for a month.
Let me tell you, I'm pretty sure I broke some kind of a shirt-trying record. Those word were some pretty power stuff.
In Dos Palabras, Isabelle Allende's character Belisa is kidnapped not for her beauty, or her money, but for her words. She is forced to sell them to el Coronel, who, after years of ravaging the countryside with his men, longs to rule the country not through fear but through, I suppose, his own merit. Well. He doesn't get off to a great start, with the whole kidnapping thing. Not exactly the turning over of a new leaf. However, Belisa writes him a speech that gets the whole country behind him, that wipes way his past misdeeds and gains him the support he needs to rule legitiamtely. Not only that, she sells him two secret words, all his own. Sneaky of her, really. Because they overpower him. He gains support throughou the land and at the same time wastes away, repeating the words to himself over and over again. Eventually, Belisa and the Coronel find each other again and Belisa's presence makes brings the Coronel back to a semblance of sanity.
The author of Dos Palabras.
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But do you see it? How words are so powerful that they can both bring you power and at the same time dominate you completely?
Red Peter saw it. He is careful to clarify what he means by “a way out” (Anthology, 367), cautious in pointing out the reader that he is “deliberately now saying freedom”(Anthology, 367). He recognizes the power of the words freedom, and prefers not to unleash its full force in his description of his situation.
Elizabeth Costello saw it. She dared not tell her son why she had “become so intense about the animals business” (Coetzee, 114) for a long time, saying that “when [she thought] of the words they seemed] so outrageous that they [were] best spoken into a pillow” (Coetzee, 114). And again, in her agonizing inner debate over her lecture on Paul West and evil, she demonstrates her faith in the power of words, wondering if he can “wander as deep... into the Nazi forest of horrors and emerge unscathed” (Coetzee 161), later announcing that she feels “ certain things are not good to read or to write” (Coetzee, 171). In Costello's case, at least in reference to Paul West, the power of words is multifold: Reading Paul West's novel, full of words, bring her to the conclusion that he himself has been changed by the evil which his words described, and uttering her conclusion affects those who heard her lecture, whether they agreed with her or not.
Even Sister Bridget, or perhaps the catholic church, depending on how you look at it, recognizes the strange capabilities of words. Why do you think she changed her name? Look at the effect that tacking Sister on the beginning has: it's almost like she, with this name, has created a new person. But it's really just a word.
Sister Bridget: a new person?
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But what is important about those who recognize the power of words is that sometimes, with practice and dedication, they can wield the power. The Coronel tried, and succeeded, to a point, at least in the realm of gaining the presidency. Red Peter, through his wary trading around the word freedom, succeeded as well. With Sister Bridget it's harder to tell: Did she become a hard-liner on her own, or did she allow her title, that 6 letter demand shoved onto one end of her name, to mold her?
But how can power be gained over words? Costello says that “it is enough for books to teach us about ourselves” (Coetzee, pg 128). A random young man says that “the humanities... develop as a body of disciplines devoted to interpretation” (Coetzee, 129). I think to gain power over words, themselves so powerful, you have to take these two ideas (that words teach us about ourselves and that they can be interpreted in different ways) and combine them. Figure out what the words teach you. Then, take what ever you've learned and reconfigure it until you've created a masterpiece that others can interpret in the way you've intended. Therein lies the danger, because, to be quite honest, you can't REALLY control how others are going to take what you say. It's a challenge to be sure. But think of the possibilities if you could just control how others construe your words.
Endless. The possibilities of words wielded with skill are endless.
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