NY Times article linking literature and psychology: I love overlap

This article highlights something that I find fascinating. Looking at the world through someone else's eyes isn't an easy thing to do. Look how many people simply cannot understand each other. Great writing makes it easy. This article mixes psychology and literature, two passions of mine so I thought I would share with you.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

"They don't know that we know they know we know."

This layered process of figuring out what someone else is thinking — of mind reading — is both a common literary device and an essential survival skill. Why human beings are equipped with this capacity and what particular brain functions enable them to do it are questions that have occupied primarily cognitive psychologists.

Now English professors and graduate students are asking them too. They say they're convinced science not only offers unexpected insights into individual texts, but that it may help to answer fundamental questions about literature's very existence: Why do we read fiction? Why do we care so passionately about nonexistent characters? What underlying mental processes are activated when we read?"

Here is the article in its entirety:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/books/01lit.html?_r=1

This topic also reminds me of a widely accepted developmental psychology theory called "theory of mind" which describes children being able to distinguish that other people have their own thoughts and they are not the same as their own thoughts. Imagine what changed when you came to realize that your mind is all yours and everyone else's mind is exclusively theirs. It is a big idea to wrap your head around, it's no wonder children usually cannot understand theory of mind until age 3.

Margaret Sanger’s Autobiography 1936: Who is she?

I am reading about Margaret Sanger as part of a loosely structured project for a graduate level history seminar that I am taking at UH Manoa. She was a crusader for bringing birth control to women. You could argue, as some historians do, that the availability of birth control is the single biggest catalyst for social change in modern society. That may seem like a bold statement but if you think about what a woman's place in society was before the pill and what it is now you couldn't argue that the change is monumental. The pill gave women the sexual freedom that had previously been reserved only for men. This is a very simple explanation of the importance of the pill, if you would like to learn a little more there is a documentary by PBS's American Experience series titled "The Pill." Here is the website is you are interested www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/. Also, the doc can be seen on youtube.

Getting back to Margaret Sanger, she dedicated her life to making a simple birth control pill available for all women. She was arrested and criticized by the government, the church and much of society in general. Despite all this opposition she was obstinate in doing whatever it took to achieve her goal. These are all things that I knew before I started reading her autobiography. What I am learning now are the details of what she thought and why she did the things she did. I am also interested in how her dedication to her cause affected her personal relationships. Her story telling is energetic and entertaining but she never lets you forget her intent. Each lesson learned in early life seems to have been a step towards her ultimate purpose, the pill.

Where I am currently reading in the autobiography Sanger is living in New York City and rubbing elbows with famed socialists of the pre-WWI era. Her emotion laden descriptions of the hard ships of laborers led me to want to learn more about life at that time. This is why I began reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. In 1912 Sanger guided over 100 children of laborers on strike in Lawrence, MA on a trek to NY to live with foster families in order to ease some of the burden off of the "Bread and Roses" strikers. Disgusted with the conditions that these children were living in she saw only more evidence for the need of birth control.

"I always came back to the idea which was beginning to obsess me—that something more was needed to assuage the condition of the very poor. It was both absurd and futile to struggle over pennies when fast coming babies required dollars to feed them." (p. 85).

I am about 1/5 of the way through Margaret Sanger's book and I look forward to learning more about her struggles and successes. Because I am reading this book for a project I am taking a lot of notes and reading rather slow. I imagine I will continue reading slowly and will bring her up continually throughout this blog. I plan on reading more books that will help me learn more about her. Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair 1906: I am definitely feeling better about my own life

I'm reading this novel on my boyfriend's Ipad* and am about 1/4 of the way through. The opening scene of the novel is a long description of a Lithuanian immigrant wedding celebration. I was intrigued by the imagery of these obviously poor and over worked people and their complete joy of celebrating as they would have in the old country. Without knowing much about these people I felt a bit like an intruder witnessing the personal emotions of these strangers. This lack of knowledge about our characters creates the feeling that what I was witnessing was a common, universal experience amongst immigrants in the early 20^th century. I think that was Sinclair's reasoning for beginning his story this way. He wanted to show that the tale he was about to tell wasn't unique. It was just the way life was for those that found themselves looking for work in the Packing Industry in Chicago. The book continues on by going back before the wedding to tell how our new Lithuanian friends came to the United States. Jurgis, one of the main characters is my kind of guy. He is large, strong, confident and determined to make a better life for his sweetheart Ona.

There is a way too long and waaaaaay too graphic scene describing the disgusting and disturbing journey that pigs travel in order to become breakfast meat (among other things). Knowing that the reader's stomach is churning, Sinclair follows this up with the same story, but with cows. Nothing was left to the imagination of the reader. Not blood, entrails, hooks, knives nor bacteria are excluded from this lengthy encounter with the dark and dirty early 1900's meat packing industry. Peta should (if they haven't already) borrow a few passages to tout their propaganda. The hardships continue, the hope filled dreams of the young sweethearts remain dangling on the edge of tragedy and there are still nearly 300 pages left. It doesn't look good for our friends.

The reason I chose to read this book was because of an allusion to it in another book I am reading, Margaret Sanger's autobiography. She had mentioned that light was beginning to be shed on the wretchedness that defined the lives of laborers because of publications such as The Jungle. I wanted to get to know that time period a little better in order to better understand Sanger and her and her early Socialist views. I have noticed several passages that promote Margaret Sanger's main cause, which is birth control for the betterment of women and families:

"These bare places were grown up with dingy, yellow weeds, hiding innumerable tomato cans; innumerable children played upon them, chasing one another here and there, screaming and fighting. The most uncanny thing about this neighborhood was the number of children; you thought there must be a school just out, and it was only after long acquaintance that you were able to realize that there was no school, but that these were the children of the neighborhood—that there were so many children to the block in Packingtown that nowhere on its street could a horse and buggy move faster than a walk!" (p. 38-39).

"The German family had been a good sort. To be sure there was a great many of them, which was a common failing in Packingtown… Then there had been the Irish, and there had been lots of them, too; the husband drank and beat the children—the neighbors could hear them shrieking any night." (p. 93).

"the children would sleep all crowded into one bed, and yet even so they could not keep warm. The outside ones would be shivering and sobbing, crawling over the others and trying to get down into the center, and causing a fight." (p. 114).

One of Sanger's main ideas was that reducing the size of the family reduces the burden on the family. The language used promotes this idea that more children cause more poverty and more hard ship on families. Being able to choose when and if you want to have another baby was a luxury not available to women at that time. They could expect to be pregnant over and over as long as they were married with no way to stop the growth of their family. And with every new baby came the expense of another mouth to feed.

The Jungle reminds me a bit of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Both novels use vivid imagery to shed light on institutions that needed to be questioned by society. Using fiction is a very powerful way to expose those parts of reality that only effect a marginalized group. By telling these stories readers become educated in the issues of their day; slavery in the case of Uncle Tom's Cabin and the mistreatment of laborers in The Jungle. These novels leave a strong taste of injustice in the mouth of the reader which helped lead to real social change.

*Page numbers are accurate when the Ipad is held vertically.