VARIETY
David Lehman
FRESHMAN ENGLISH
I used to teach for a living. In addition to teaching courses in
literature and creative writing, I usually taught at least one section offreshman
composition each semester. As one semester came to a close, my students asked
me to write a model essay for them
-
to show them how it was done. Men I
tried to meet this reasonable request, I found to
rrry
chagrin that my writing had
been influenced in rather surprising ways by
rrry
charges. In the time-honored
academic tradition, I had "learned morefrom my students than they had learned
from me," as the following essay proves beyond the shadow
oj
a doubt:
The books we have read this semester have many things
in common, but the most important one is catastrophe.
In
some
cases, it's the gods' fault, like Oedipus; in other cases, it's humans
who are to blame, like Faust. But in every case catastrophe is the
result, which is inevitable.
Goethe's
Faust
is the story of a partnership between the devil,
Mephistopheles, and a member of the human race, Henry Faust,
the scholar. Faust is not a happy man. Even though he believes that
he will be satisfied by experiencing actions in his life (e.g. interac–
tions with women and the observations of a tavern) he is so unhappy
with life's slim benefits that suicide actually becomes a viable alter–
native, until he joins up with Mephistopheles. According to their
agreement, if Faust becomes satisfied, his desires become minimal,
if at all. He is too smart for his own good.
Another book we read this semester is
Crime and Punishment
by
Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Raskolnikov feels he is superior to human con–
duct, like Napoleon, so he kills two old ladies, one who deserved it
but the other didn't. By the end of the novel he is wrong and in
Siberia.
If
he was really superior that wouldn't be the case, but he
must learn the hard way. Although it is
tr~e
that some men are bet–
ter than other men, they are only so much better, and after a certain
point they are no better at all.
