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^ Archdiocese of Atlanta
GEORGIA BULLETIN
SERVING GEORGIA S 71 NORTHERN COUNTIES
GEORGIA BULLETIN
BOOK SUPPLEMENT
THURSDAY, MAY 30, 1963
Fiction Is A Subject With Life-
It Should Be Taught That Way
BY
IRVING & CORNELIA SUSSMAN
The proposition ("repugnant
to most English teachers")that
fiction if it is going to be taught
in the high schools, should be
taught as a subject and as a
subject with history, is Miss
Flannery O'Connor's simple
answer to some parental ob
jections to their children’s
reading assignments.
Miss O’Connor’s article
"Fiction Is A Subject With A
History - It Should Be Taught
That Way" solves the teaching
problem by a Pilate-like wash
ing of hands, as if to say:
"Don’t try to intimidate me
with your objections about
eighth and ninth graders read
ing modern fiction— go read the
fiction of the past; those wri
ters are dead, you can chop
them as you please, they won’t
care."
But unfortunately, sending
disgruntled parents off to the
greener pastures of the past
merely evades the real problem
of teaching fiction in our secon
dary schools.
"THF teacher’s ’work,"
writed Sr. Petra, O.S.B., who
teaches in Covington, Kentucky,
"is to open doors, build roads,
erect ladders, through which,
on which, up which the student
may come into the possession
of truth. The student can no
more live without truth than a
plant can grow in cement. It
is an act of love for a teacher
to put him on the road where
truth can be found."
So, though an author is tempt
ed to theorize and a parent to
take umbrage, the teacher must
go on, must have courage to
carry on with the work at hand,
with the teaching which is his
work. And teaching does mean
to open doors, to help the child
expand in perceptiveness, to
help the child grow. The teach
er is asking a continual ques
tion of the young person; he
asks it through all teaching and
especially through the teaching
of fiction — he is asking the
young person to ask himself*
"Do I have the courage to
become involved?"
lliis question is the core of
learning; it is the core of grow
ing up— and it requires first
of all to know what you are
becoming involved ini The an
swer, of course, is "Life."
Knowing about "life" means
knowing WHAT man is and WHY
lrr hr. But tkk takes learning.
Hie child has to learn there
are other worlds, must become
aware of these other worlds
inside other human beings. This
IRVING SUSSMAN
knowledge of reality is taught
through fiction.
FICTION is but one kind of
learning in the educational pro
cess; yet it is a most essential
kind. Through fiction the young
person becomes aware of
others, comes out erf his SELF
NESS, discovers what it means
to be in another's predicament,
to feel another person’s sor
rows and indignations, and takes
this back into the "own" little
eggshell. Fiction is a kind of
impregnation of the undeveloped
self, the ego locked up in the
eggshell. Through fiction, the
single individual comes to re
cognize others, to develop un
derstanding, even, God willing,
to break out of the shell, be a
mature person, to grow up.
CORNELIA SUSSMAN
But to become involved with
life through the means of fic
tions requires learning to read
both the fiction of the past and
the fiction of the present.
The two Georgia cases that
seem to have frightened Flan
nery O’Connor right out v of the
present, so that she asks please
that children be assigned Coop
er, Hawthorne, Melville, but no
moderns— could be parralleled
by two California cases. The
only differnece is the era in
volved. The California parents
were not objecting to their
children’s reading assignments
in modern fiction, but to their
children's reading assignment
in the "Grand-daddy" of all
fiction, THE DIVINE COMEDY.
Although Dante is a poet, many
professors regard his DIVINE
COMEDY as the beginning of
the modern novel,
THE California parents ob
jected to their children’s being
told about Dante and having to
read an assignment from THE
DIVINE COMEDY because
these parents did not believe
people are punished for their
sins and they did not want their
children reading the kind of
fiction that portrayed hell as a
truth.
There are cases where par
ents have objected to THE MER
CHANT of VENICE, wanting
Shylock delected; others have
objected to BEOWULF as an
example of drunken-ness amon
gst "Anglo-Saxon" forbears
and also because the gory de
tails of Grendel’s death might
influence a blood-lust in the
young readers. A teacher
in Arizona was censured by
parents for permitting her 9th
grade students to read THE RED
BADGE OF COURAGE, this un
fortunate title having been in
terpreted as praise of the Soviet
Union. No doubt everyone has
read of the parents in New
York state who objected to their
children's reading THE SCAR
LET LETTER in the 9th grade,
because Hawthorne dealt with
adultery. They also wanted
Mark Twain's HUCKLEBERRY
FINN out because Huck is a bad
example who might lead child
ren to think it is better to be
a happy bum than a success
ful business man.
IN THE light of the above,
one ponders Miss O’Connors
crack that "too frequently in
high schools anyone who can
speak English is allowed to
teach it." In all charity, one
assumes Miss O’Connor is kid
ding, or better still, trying to
irritate a precious pearl under
the shell of an already much-
irritated oysterl
The teaching of fiction, whet
her the subject be taught as a
subject with a history going as
far back as Beowulf and Dante,
or a subject with life as re
cent as Golding and Salinger,
will always have a variety of
objectors. The reason is not
hard to find— fiction, like life
itself, has many objectional as
pects. Yet, we dare not keep
life away from our children, no
more than we dare keep our
children away from life; nei
ther teachers nor parents nor
just plain citizens really want
this.
True, one runs the risk of
having a fuddled student write
that Lincoln was shot while at
tending a movie. But even if he
wrote "while attending GONE
WITH THE WIND," teachers
would just have to take that
risk. All of life is risk, and
education is the greatest risk
of all.
THE TEACHER’s work is to
risk education; to risk arousing
in the child an interest in read
ing. It is indeed futile to talk
of a young person's taste in
reading, or to worry about whe
ther or not the young person’s
being consulted. If fiction is
taught as a living experience,
taste in reading, comprehen
sion, perceptiveness will fol
low as the night follows the
day.
Life is "a constant," in all
ages— and so is love. In fic
tion, as in life, love is an
"ever fixed mark"; so is adul
tery, whether it is portrayed
as a sin, or as "an incon
venience" (which Miss O’Con
nor says is its portrayal in the
modem novel—an evaluation
not entirely just).
Fiction reading, taught both
historically and presently,
brings the relatedness, of
human existence into focus. The
young reader who first reads
of adultery, for instance, in the
Bible, says: "Oh, that’s all
past history.*' How often teach
ers hear the remark: "In those
days things were different. We’
re living in modem days." Like
an echo from a hollow cave,
the same remark resounds for
ANNA KARENINA; centuries
have been traversed but to the
younger reader, it is all "Past
history." Yet, when that same
young reader sees these past
histories fall into focus through
the recognition of a similar
human predicament in a mo
dem novel, he does read the
fiction of the past with new
interest and understanding.
A 9TH grade girl wrote, in a
book report on Graham
Greene’s THE END OF THE
AFFAIR, that she found this
story "so different** because
she had never known that adul
tery was a rival to the love of
God. Now she understood the
Bible, and saw why Sarah, the
heroine of the Greene story,
was unable to contribute in an
adulterous affair after she fell
in love with God.
IN AN 11th grade class, stud
ents were assigned selections
from Thomas More’s UTOPIA.
Characteristic cries of pain and
agony were heard all over the
school, and even though the
colorful history of Henry VIII
was stressed, the satire pointed
—up, humanism and "how like
our times" etc,; still UTOPIA
did not come alive for these
young people. Then a "mira
cle" happened. A 10th grade
English teacher mentioned THE
LORD OF THE FLIES by Gold-
CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
IRVING and Cornelia Sussman have several times combined their
literary talents. He is Head of English Department, Palm Springs
High School, Palm Springs, California, ( May 23, 1963, he received
at a special meeting of the Board of Education a "Certificate of Ap
preciation" presented to him "in recognition of distinguished and
loyal service to the Palm Springs Unified School District" by the
Board of Education and Superintendent of Schools) Author of plays
(he was once head of the Drama Department at the Dominican Col
lege of San Rafael, and was indeed the first to produce Claudel's
"Christopher Columbus" with music by Darius Milhaud, in the
United States. It was put on at Domincan College some twenty years
ago by Irving, and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra came
and played Milhaud’s music). He is also author of many articles
including "Medieval Mystery PlaYs" (The Critic, January, 1961)
and a very recent profile of Frank Skully in January, 1963 Catholic
Digest. He is one the editorial board of The Bridge, edited by Mon
signor John M. Oesterreicher, and in collaboration with Cornelia, has
written for The Bridge essays on the crucifixion paintings of Marc
Chagall, the religious sculptures of Epstein, an essay on Pasternak,
and also one on J. D. Salinger, plus others.
CORNELIA Sussman is the author of four novels, under the pen
name of Cornelia Jessay. The Growing Roots, her first, was a Jew-
ish Book Club Selection. This and Teach the Angry Spirit were both
published by Crown, New York. The Treasures of Darkness, pub
lished by Noonday Press, New York, and also by Collins, England,
was among the books chosen to be included for discussion in the Lon
don Times issue on the American imagination. Her latest novel
Consuela Bright, was published in the U.b. by Sheed and Ward, and
<n England bv Harvill She is on the editorial board of The
Bridge, and has collaborated on the above names articles with Irving.
