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Changing Lives Through Literature
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prisonsIn a scuffed-up college classroom in Dartmouth, Mass., 14 people page through a short story by T. C. Boyle. They debate the date at which the action is set: when was the Chevy Bel Air released, and what was the drinking age in New York State that year? They question moral responsibility: when the three friends in the Bel Air assault a girl, should peer pressure be blamed for their impulse, or hormones, drink, sin? To which the man at the head of our table rejoins: Theres a kind of complexity to human experience that isnt always recognized. You try to figure out whos right and whos wrong, but sometimes both are wrong, right?
Of the 14 people, a dozen are male. One is an English professor, one is a graduate student, two are judges and two are probation officers. The eight othersare convicted criminalswho have been granted probation in exchange for attending, and doing the homework for, six twice-monthly seminars on literature. The class is taught through Changing Lives Through Literature, an alternative sentencing program that allows felons and other offenders to choose between going to jail or joining a book club. At each two-hour meeting, students discuss fiction, memoirs and the occasional poem; authors range from Frederick Douglass to John Steinbeck to Toni Morrison, topics from self-mutilation and family quarrels to the Holocaust and the Montgomery bus boycott.
Robert Waxler, a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and the man at the head of the table, founded the reading program in 1991 with Superior Court Judge Robert Kane and Wayne Saint Pierre, a probation officer; since then, it has expanded to eight other states.
8 Responses to “Changing Lives Through Literature”
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I really enjoyed this essay. If only a few inmates benefit from the program, I think it’s well worth it.
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Hello, Brenda. Pleased to make your acquaintance. We discovered the joys of cooking on a kerosene heater back in the ice storm of 2003, though I didn’t try to do biscuits. Stewed chicken & dumplings was good.
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“You try to figure out whos right and whos wrong, but sometimes both are wrong, right?”
I think he’s talking about who’s right and who’s wrong about what’s to blame for assaulting the girl, but I feel like he’s talking about who’s at fault for the rape.
Which is probably due to the fact that we aren’t getting the whole conversation there, just a few bits of it, and so it seems like they’re talking about something entirely different.
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Hi Sherry,
I was a participant in the above discussion–I am the “graduate student” mentioned in the second paragraph. To clarify the question Tommy posed above, the conversation snippet occurred during a conversation about the gray areas that come with assigning guilt and blame to situations like the near-rape in Greasy Lake. Are the men entirely at fault for their instincts towards the woman? What role do their life situations and the circumstances of the night play in their impulses? Does the girl play any role in triggering their desires?
The point is that assigning guilt and innocence–in literature and in real life–is never black and white. While some acts (such as rape) undoubtedly deserve punishment, it is a mistake to cast the perpetrators as entirely “bad.” Our program encourages probationers to examine these literary characters and see how their life choices and circumstances can lead to both positive and negative outcomes.
To read more about how Professor Waxler leads the Greasy Lake discussion, consider checking out this page of our website: http://cltl.umassd.edu/resourcesinstruct3d.cfm
Additionally, our blog post on Cholly Breedlove’s actions in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye may be of interest to you and your readers–there’s a good discussion in the comments section as well: http://cltlblog.wordpress.com/2008/11/15/prisons-are-built-with-stones-of-law/
Thanks for sharing this link with your readers! I encourage anyone wanting to know more about the program to send your thoughts to cltl@umassd.edu
(PS: Hi to a fellow Wildcat! I received my BA in English from the University of Kentucky in 2002 )
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sherry March 1st, 2009 at 9:30 am
Jeralyn at TalkLeft thinks President Obama’s new budget is still overspending on prisons:
The Budget provides $6 billion for the Bureau of Prisons and $1.4 billion for the Office of the Detention Trustee to ensure that sentenced criminals and detainees are housed in facilities that are safe, humane, costefficient, and appropriately secure.
Jeralyn’s response:
It’s admirable that we are going to make prisons safer, but a better plan would be to incarcerate fewer people, particularly pre-trial detainees. How about releasing more of them on bond, particularly those charged with non-violent drug crimes?
$10 billion to fight immigrants and strenghten prisons versus $109 million for prisoner re-entry strikes me as imbalanced.
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sherry March 1st, 2009 at 9:32 am
Welcome, Jenni. Thanks for the linky post. Check out the links, folks.
Great to meet a fellow UK English grad, though my degree was taken in the dark ages compared to yours. I think the only person still around from my days may be Joe Gardner.
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“The point is that assigning guilt and innocencein literature and in real lifeis never black and white. While some acts (such as rape) undoubtedly deserve punishment, it is a mistake to cast the perpetrators as entirely bad. Our program encourages probationers to examine these literary characters and see how their life choices and circumstances can lead to both positive and negative outcomes.”
If you are arguing that a rape victim bears some of the blame, what then shall be the punishment? I suppose we are lucky that we do not live in those parts of the world where the price of sexual transgression is the woman’s life.
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I do not argue that a rape victim is ever to “blame” for the act committed against them–either in literature or in real life. I do suggest that elements of the victims’ behavior, dress, etc. can play a part in the transgression by triggering certain emotions or reactions in the offender based on his/her history and mental state. This is not to engage in victim-blaming or advocate people to act or dress a certain way to avoid victimization. I wish simply to suggest that human interactions are never one-sided. Rape victims, for example, are not to blame or at fault for what happens, but they play a role–however innocent, however unwilling–in the act, regardless.
We advocate looking at a situation from all perspectives and talking about personal histories and roles of characters before labeling them as “guilty” or “innocent,” “good” or “bad”.
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Dance the Black-Eyed Girl
My Will and Testament Is on the Desk
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Sherry has also received an Artist Enrichment grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women.
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