Bosola, and the first sign of change

On Monday night when Monica and I talked to Olivia on Skype, we told her about our polite disagreement over the interpretation of Bosola's character. Monica thinks Bosola tells whomever he's speaking to what that person wants to hear, and isn't honest. She thinks he's motivated by money, and is driven by ambition.

I think, on the other hand, that he is always honest, and is in that way an anomaly when compared with any other character we have ever read in this course. I don't think he cares about the money, or of rising above his position. I think he only asks what's due to him, and doesn't "reach above what he can see" as he tells Antonio. I think he very much wants to be a good person, (he wants to be like Antonio) but he isn't strong enough to jump track from the criminal life he has led so far.

Basically, Monica condemns him as dishonest because he acts in a dishonest way, while his words imply he might be good. I think that he represents an exception to the rule that "actions speak louder than words". His words, I think, speak louder. He is bound by his past as a criminal and by his own sense of self-loathing, from doing the right thing. He succumbs to that little devil on his shoulder which says "Don't even try to change, bro - you're rotten, you have been since day one, and there's no point in trying to change now. Just take the money and do it."

Olivia encouraged us to air this scholarly debate before the students, to show them that multiple interpretations can be valid. After the class had discussed Bosola during the referred to conversation with Antonio (when Monica thinks he catering to his audience and I think he's being honest) we explained our standpoints. I think the class wasn't quite sure what to do with us. They don't often see teachers express their opinions about the class material, let alone in a way that reveals so much thought and studied contemplation. Monica works with me in one twelfth grade section, and the other section, I'm happy to say, came to almost all the same points that she and I raised in our discussion, without help. Their thoughts about Bosola dazzled me with their insightfulness. They are 16 and 17, and they get this jaded, criminal and tortured man in a remarkable way.

Antonio also says he "gets" Bosola. Take this conversation we looked at today:

Ant. I do understand your inside. 

Bos. Do you so?

Ant. Because you would not seem to appear to th' world 
Puft up with your preferment, you continue
This out-of-fashion melancholy: leave it, leave it.


Bos. Give me leave to be honest in any phrase, in any 
Complement whatsoever. Shall I confess myself to you? 
I look no higher than I can reach:
They are the gods that must ride on winged horses.
A lawyer's mule, of a slow pace, will both suit
My disposition and business: for, mark me,
When a man's mind rides faster than his 
horse can gallop, they quickly both tire.


Ant. You would look up to heaven, but I think 
The devil, that rules i'th'air stands in your light. 

We talked about what we thought those devils could be, that are blocking Bosola out from the sunlight of heaven. I wish I had also the other class's comments, which we drew out even more, but this gives an idea of the thrust of the conversation, and the depth of the comments that this text is inspiring. 

Now, in the eleventh grade at the end of the day, it was time for role play. The prompt:

The first sign of change (a way of stirring up ideas before looking at how the white missionaries enter Umuofia in Things Fall Apart).

These notes came during the feedback after role plays about

- weather and plants growing. The first sign of change was the sun coming out, and other group members portrayed how that action sets in motion a chain of events

- a man who, after years of sitting dejected on the sidewalk as passers by abuse him finally takes a stand against someone who sneers an unkind comment for the umpteenth time.

-  a group of teens in which someone introduces a joint, and others take a hit. One girl refuses. The next day, everyone in the circle except her has a joint. She asks if anyone has an extra and lights up.

These points came during the feedback session. Everything above represents a student comment. When classes like this end, I basically want to give a medal to everyone in the class. I love this! What made this finally particularly satisfying is that at the end we saved three minutes for Basket of Doom and Noura spelled compassion, fulfilling and circumstances correctly, earning her class their first point of the new quarter.