Letter 4

Dear Josephine,

If there was one book that I believe everyone should read, it would be "The History of Sexuality" (vol. 1) by Michel Foucault. However, you should know that I have not read "Invisible Man" by Ellison yet, and that might trump the former publication. I will give you my prognosis upon completion of Ellison's novel. But, unfortunately, this imposed education (which of course, I state with all intended pretentiousness) will never be inflicted - nor really, should it as what one reads is a personal as with whom one chooses to have sex (if one equates "intimacy/personal" with "sex").

Instead, I encourage you to read both novels and tell me your opinion. For now, appease your scholarly curiosity with the poem below. It was the epigraph to my thesis, and I think it accurately summarizes "socialization" and the concept of "identity" (in similar ways to Foucault and Ellison's theses):


Prospero, you are the master of illusion.
Lying is your trademark.
And you have lied so much to me
(lied about the world, lied about me)
that you have ended by imposing on me
an image of myself.
underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior,
That’s the way you have forced me to see myself
I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie!
But now I know you, you old cancer,
and I know myself as well.

– A Translation of the Final Scene in Une Tempete (A Tempest) a play by Aimé Césaire.


Anyway, the narrative that is my life is constantly being re-assessed. I wonder sometimes if everyone would benefit from some sort-of script; then, of course, there would be minimal creativity in personal expression.

In this letter these words create a pattern: personal, identity, socialization, and sex. My conscious most be affected by those corporate valentine's day commercials and victoria secret campaign ads. Yes, I do blame thoughts on cultural/media influences. Why has showing one's "love" for another been equated with the giving of trinkets and things? But more importantly, why is it necessary to show one's love through these means? Why are we always trying to prove things?

I don't have anything else to write this evening. I have spent a day wishing I had not spent others they way I did - but everyone has moments of introspection.

In conclusion, of course I am being foolish. Would you expect anything different?

So much love--

l.c.