The Zippered Heart by Marilyn Meberg

Author:Marilyn Meberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2012-04-10T00:00:00+00:00

9

Knock Knock, Who’s There?

REMOVING OUR FALSE FRONTS

When my grandson Ian was three years old, he totally discarded his identity and became Peter Pan. He could fly magically about the living room, slicing the air with his sword (Is Peter Pan known to have a sword?), and were I to mistakenly call him Ian, there was a price to pay from the tip of that sword.

Ian, now six years old, has apparently made peace with his identity, and it is currently safe to call him Ian without bodily threat. Last night at dinner, however, four-year-old Alec informed me that he is Batman. I asked him why he is Batman and no longer Alec. His slightly exasperated explanation was that Batman was bad and he wanted to be bad too. This explanation inspired two questions in my mind. Should I explain the duality of little Alec’s nature—the side of him that wants to be good and the side that wants to be bad? And do I try to explain that Batman was good, while the Joker was bad? It all seemed far too complex, so I said, “Good night, Batman” as he walked to his mama’s car.

We know it is common for children to adopt the identities of those who represent power. Children often feel weak and ineffective. The secretly held power of a Clark Kent who becomes Superman or a Billy who turns into Captain Marvel can provide an escape from feelings of powerlessness.

There are, however, many adults who also suffer from a sense of powerlessness and inadequacy. To compensate, they construct elaborate new identities, which are then presented to the public. The purpose of someone’s constructing a new identity is to hide and deny the real one. The real one, which is judged to be weak, flawed, and inadequate, must be kicked to the zipper’s left, where hopefully it will remain unnoticed and inactive. The public identity is created out of the need for significance and value.

A blatant example of one who felt it necessary to fabricate a more acceptable, valuable, and significant identity was the southern writer William Faulkner. For most of his youth and early manhood, Faulkner considered himself utterly impotent as a person, and he believed that in order to preserve a sense of self he had to create a new identity.

When the woman he loved jilted him for an officer in the air force, Faulkner determined to become an officer. When he applied for flight training in the United States Air Force, however, he was refused on the grounds that he was undereducated and too short. He applied then to the Canadian Royal Flying Corps. Before filling out the papers, he created an elaborate series of fictions. He claimed that his mother was from Britain; he listed his birthplace as Finchley, Middlesex, and his religion as Church of England.

He never saw active military service but returned to his home in Mississippi with a limp he claimed was a war injury. To his limp Faulkner added the story that he had been wounded in the head.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.