Dialogues Home

Acknowledgements

Editor's Introduction

Student Essays

Dialogues@RU Links

Dialogues@RU is published
annually by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey

Volume Two
Spring 2003

Response

Lisa Cardinal

I was glad that Denise Svenson could relate to the notion that, ironically, our most common and relied-on tool of expression, language, may not allow us to express ourselves as effectively as many people once thought and continue to think. Rebecca Walker's autobiography brought to light the frustration in trying to establish an identity through language. This is perhaps a frustration many of us have shared but never related to language. However, I think as Walker and Svenson reiterate, it is important to acknowledge the limitations language has as a tool of expression, especially when trying to create the "self" through it. Svenson brings up a valid point when she writes, "One wonders, then, if an author can ever be completely successful in his or her task using only the tools of language, which are so susceptible to periodical metamorphoses." However, what I extracted from Walker's autobiography was that while language has its boundaries and is not completely successful in its intended purpose, we should not dismiss it as a tool of expression altogether. The vital thing is that we are not misled into the notion that language can account for all aspects of our complex, multidimensional identities. It is only when people cease to acknowledge this essential reality that language becomes counterproductive. For example, when we ignore the boundaries of language, we might be neglecting some critical aspect of our self that cannot be captured in words, as Walker's experience illustrates. While language will always have its limitations, we should not view it as a complete failure but rather just be more conscious of our employment of it. Furthermore, the limitations of language serve as a reminder that we should not be dependent on language as our only tool of expression.

Svenson also commented that through the reading of short excerpts from Walker's book, she found that "this glimpse into Walker's psychological world merely left me wanting more." I had to laugh a little when I read this because I had gotten this critique once before from a student reviewing my paper. Being a psychology major, I wholeheartedly agree that there is a lot to be said about the psychological aspect of Walker's experience. In fact, in writing this paper I often found myself tempted to stray from the topic of language and wanted to delve more deeply into Walker's experiences from a psychological viewpoint. However, I quickly discovered that if I included and expanded on this aspect of Walker's autobiography, I would no longer be writing a paper, I'd be writing a book. Nevertheless, ironically three months after I had written my paper, while reading a book about Carl Jung for a psychology class, I found a striking correlation between Jung and Walker's experience. Jung had discussed how he had felt that that everyone was essentially comprised of two personalities. The first personality was what we might consider the "social" personality, consisting of all the verbal categories we can place ourselves in, such as "daughter," "student," "father," and so forth. The second personality was of a more metaphysical nature-what Jung sometimes refers to as the "collective unconscious." This second personality reminded me very much of the dimension of identity that Walker stressed which many of us tend to ignore. It is something that is in all of us, but may not be able to be verbalized, and as a result many of us tend not to validate it. If I were to ever expand on my paper, I would love to include a more in-depth analysis of Walker's psychological world. On the other hand, I am glad that reading the paper left Svenson with a yearning curiosity to discover more about Walker's life. I hope people who read my paper are left with this type of yearning so that it intrigues them to pick up a copy of Walker's book, read it for themselves, and formulate their own interpretations.

Page One    Page Two     Page Three     Page Four    Page Five     Page Six