The Hunt

            Anne Gilchrist, I understand what you were feeling. I’m not even going to pretend what I ever felt or hope to feel was/will be as intense as what you felt, but I sympathize with your actions, understand why you fell in love with Walt, and why you uprooted your life for him. You fell in love, Anne. What’s so shameful in that? It’s not crazy. It’s not desperate. You knew your own heart and listened to its longings. And you knew his, Walt’s, heart right from the start. You wrote beautiful sentiments of your affection: “[N]othing in life can tear out of my heart the passionate belief,” she wrote, “that one day I shall hear that voice say to me, ‘My Mate. The one I so much want. Bride, Wife, indissoluble eternal!’” (Ashworth). You discovered an intellectual beauty in him, and then he helped you discover yourself, your mind, your heart, and your writing. So, remind me again, why is that crazy? I just don’t see it.

            Why do my classmates judge you so harshly for your commitment to what you thought, what you knew, was your destiny--to be with him? I admire you, Anne. You led a full, satisfied, intellectual, interesting life. Walt only added to the already complete self who you were. You were not pathetic. Unlike what all of my classmates think, you’re not what Kylie called you—a babe, a ‘hot mess’ of a woman who was desperate or relied on her 'femaleness' to woo Walt. You led a full life with or without him, but simply put, you just fell head over heels for him. I know you found your intellectual, and perhaps romantic, match. And you, unlike so many other women I see today, pursued him. You took the initiative. Good girl. You told him, “I that have never set eyes upon thee, all the Atlantic flowing between us, yet cleave closer than those that stand nearest & dearest around thee—love thee day & night. . . . Do not say that I am forward, or that I lack pride because I tell this love to thee who have never sought or made sign of desiring to seek me. Oh, for all that, this love is my pride my glory. Source of sufferings and joys that cannot put themselves into words. Besides, it is not true thou hast not sought or loved me. For when I read the divine poems I feel all folded round in thy love. (L, pp. 65-66)” (Cavitch). What’s wrong with that!? I think you could teach the women of today a few lessons on true love and being willing to express those sentiments. It's a new world, friends--a world where women can take the initiative just as much as men can. You took that initiative. It’s the 21^st century; forget waiting for the guy to make the first move. Although you didn’t marry him, I bet you that if you came back from the grave, you’d have no regrets on your choices. Those choices made you you. For that, congratulations and good work. I’m proud of you. I wish I had as much gumption as you.

            But, as we said in class, I too recognize the tendency to victimize/call crazy the obsessed fan (fanatic). My greatest fear, for you Anne, is that you based your happiness in life off of his letters, his callings, his sweet affections. That is my fear for you. Your own happiness cannot solely be aroused by an outside source, person, or event. You must be content as you are. You must believe that, “I sit as I am, that is enough, If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content” (Whitman 19). Whether you receive affections from others or whether you don’t, you must be self-assured in your own person that you can arouse happiness from your mere existence. “What is commonest and cheapest and nearest and easiest is Me” (Whitman 13). Listen to Walt; what he says is true. True for Anne, AND true for us. It’s the hardest thing to do in the world (believe me…I’m trying to allow and make myself to be content in my own selfhood, even if devoid of all other affections), but we must do it. We must learn to do it. Because, as I will discuss in my next point, at the end of our lives, we are…alone. Plain and simple. Just you. Just Death. No one else to live that experience with you. It’s just you and being willing to let go.

            This leads to my next point, which ironically, directly relates to my favorite episode of The Twilight Zone. I love this show. And it’s all my dad’s fault. It wasn't until I called my dad to let him know (and to thank him for tuning the tvs in the house to The Twilight Zone on New Year's Day instead of football; my dad is awesome like that) that I was using his favorite Twilight Zone episode for a class assignment that I discovered "The Hunt"'s screenplay writer, Earl Hamner, not only wrote my favorite Twilight Zone episode, BUT he also wrote the screenplay for one of my favorite childhood movies, Charlotte's Web. My poor parents must have been sick of that movie; I watched it ALL the time. I even had a little, plastic toy of Wilber that went with me everywhere I went. Why? I don't know; I liked animal toys better than Barbies I guess. I distinctly remember watching an ISU Sycamore's girls' basketball game with my grandparents and parents at Hulman Stadium and not caring about the game in the slightest; I wanted to make up an imaginary adventure for Wilber the pig toy as he made his way over the mountains (back of seats in front of me; I was a creative, little child). I was very entertained. My parents were terrified I'd drop him and lose the toy forever. My mom took Wilber from me and put him in her purse. And I was forced to watch the game. I was so ticked. But, back on topic :] I just think it's an interesting side note and insight to my education as a young adult; it's interesting that this guy's works have been such an integral part of my upbringing. I blame all of my nerdiness and love of The Twilight Zone on you, Dad. But, that’s beside the point.

            In this episode of The Twilight Zone, Old Man Simpson finds himself on Eternity Road, all alone (save his trusty coonhound, Rip) and confused about how he ended up there. He finally comes upon a gate, a gate that looks like—to him—Heaven’s gates. But alas, this gate is a temptation; this gate is the entrance to Hell. The gatekeeper tries and tries to persuade Simpson to enter the gate and ‘join the fun,’ and he almost enters but Rip (good, ol’ Rip) starts acting up and refuses to enter the gates. When Simpson tries to force him to come along, the gatekeeper protests and says dogs aren’t allowed in ‘Heaven.’ If you’ve seen the scenes prior to this one, insulting Rip’s rights or excluding him is one thing that really gets Simpson upset. Simpson refuses to enter the gates and vows instead to keep on trekking down Eternity Road. Good thing he does, because "Not [he], not any one else can travel that road for [him], [He] must travel it for [him]self. It is not far....it is within reach, Perhaps [he has] been on it since [he was] born, and did not know" (Whitman 46). Lo and behold, he comes upon a man, one that he couldn’t have reached if he had not stuck to his morals (keeping his dog with him at all costs) and kept on traveling down that road. He had been on that road the whole time, the road to heaven that is, if he had kept on walking. And walking he did. He finally meets the angel who will guide him into Heaven, ironically a place without a gated entrance, and welcomes Simpson and Rip in with open arms and the promise of a coon hunt later that night--a place where he can "think [he] could turn and live awhile with the animals...they are so placid and self-contained" (32).

            The hunt is the hunt for being satisfied with one’s own independence, singlehood, one’s own self when stripped down of ‘couplement,’ exterior forces, family, or friends. Who are you down inside; who are you in your barest, most essential form? It’s a constant hunt to find that person and celebrate oneself, and when you come to the end of your life and are traveling down that long, lonely road alongside Heaven’s fence, you will realize your own ‘aloneness’ in the world. Better learn to be content with it before you have to travel that path alongside the spit rail fence in…The Twilight Zone.

            “You are traveling to another dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind, a journey into the wondrous land whose boundaries are that of the imagination. Your next stop…The Twilight Zone” (The Hunt). How is traveling to the Twilight Zone any different than the journey to discovering the need to “celebrate [oneself]” (I). It isn’t. Just as seemingly alone. Just as self-reliant. Just as thrilling. Just as scary. But, a little bit of advice from me: keep a dog at your side during your travels to fields of leaves of grass. “Travelers to unknown regions would be well-advised to take along the family dog. He could just save you from entering the wrong gate.” Because, "You see, Mr. Simpson, a man...well, he'll walk right into Hell with both eyes open. But even the Devil can't fool a dog!" (The Hunt).

The episode that started it all: Twilight Zone: "The Hunt"

Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. New York: Penguin Books, 1959. Print.

Ashworth, Suzanne. "Lover, Mother, Reader: The Epistolary Courtship of Walt Whitman." Nineteenth-Century Contexts 26.2 (2004): 173-197. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 10 Mar. 2011.

Cavitch, Max. "Audience Terminable and Interminable: Anne Gilchrist, Walt Whitman,and the Achievement of Disinhibited Reading." Victorian Poetry 43.2 (2005): 249-261. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 10 Mar. 2011.