Courage
Political courage is construed as risking life, not struggling with or championing life, risking pride, risking desire. A real man lays his life on the line. For what is death risked? For honor, for glory, for a value greater than life, for freedom from enslavement by life, for immortality, or for the ‘ultimate value’ of the state.
Wendy Brown, 182
In Manhood and Politics Wendy Brown suggests that the traditional understanding of courage and its role within politics is linked to a particular set of acts that are practiced by a certain type of individual and that involve the pursuit of a specific set of goals. According to her, political courage is understood as the risking of life (acts) by an heroic man (individual) for the purpose of achieving honor and immortality (goals). In this understanding, the risking of life is privileged over life itself. And, honor (personal, political) and immortality are valorized as the ultimate ends of political actions either in the name of the State or in conflict with the State. In her analysis of this understanding, Brown argues that this type of courage is “narrow in its meaning and content” (1988, 206). It links courage and courageous activity explicitly and solely with men and it fails to recognize the value of sustaining life within politics.
In place of this masculine notion of courage, Brown wishes to offer a new understanding of courage, one that is not linked to the risking of life, but to the affirmation and nurturing of life. This new understanding requires the redefining of the activities, goals and individuals involved in the practice of courage. In her novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez engages in such a feminist redefinition of courage. Her stories of the Mirabel sisters and their participation within the resistance movement against the Dominican Republic dictator Trujillo, provide a variety of political actions that are courageous but are not predicated solely on the risking of life and the pursuit of honor and glory. In this essay, I will highlight several ways in which Alvarez redefines courage through a close reading of María Teresa’s (Mate) journal entries from prison.1 This close reading will be done in connection with several feminist critiques and reconstructions of courage and will be divided into five major sections: Courage as (1) the practice of sustaining life; (2) the pursuit of dignity and humanity; (3) collective action; (4) acting through fear and (5) the act of writing.
I. Courage as the practice of sustaining life
As suggested in the introduction to this essay, Wendy Brown argues that the traditional understanding of courage and its role within politics is linked to a very specific activity: the risking of life. As a result of this linkage, “politics…is never for the sake of life” (Brown 1988, 179, quoting Arendt 1958, 36). Ultimately, life is something to transcend, something to get beyond in order to participate in the larger-than-life affairs of the State. This transcendence of life is understood to be a transcendence of every aspect of life, “routines, rhythms, involvement with nature and necessity” (Brown 1995, 190). According to this understanding, these mundane affairs of life do not belong in the world of politics and should be relegated to the private sphere and the world of women (Brown 1995, 190).
In this understanding of courage, life, that is activities of life and participation by a body in life, is severely devalued. In fact, any concern with life is viewed as a distraction and a threat to politics. In her chapter “What is to be Overcome: The Politics of Domination,” Brown illustrates this devaluation through her discussion of the political philosophy of Max Weber. According to her, Weber “insisted upon politicians who were free from the cares of everyday life…He despaired at the infestation of politics by ‘emotionalism’ or ‘petty concerns’” (1988, 179). Weber understands political courage to be an activity that should stand above everyday life. As his mention of infestation suggests, the petty concerns of life could only serve to taint the purity of politics and political acts of courage.
Many feminist theorists and activists have critiqued this model of courage and its devaluation of life. For example, Bernice Johnson Reagon, in her groundbreaking essay, “Coalition Politics: Turning the Century,” argues that the courage to survive and to participate in life is the ultimate goal of politics. “None of this matters at all very much if you die tomorrow,” she claims. “It only matters if you make a commitment to be around another fifty or more years…What would you be like if you had white hair and had not given up your principles” (1983, 361)? For Reagon, the risking of life (or the loss of life) does not represent the ultimate expression of courage; it represents the failure of politics to be effective. The ultimate expression of courage is that of living to continue your political activity.
This emphasis on surviving and nurturing life is a central part of Mate’s journal entries from prison. Having been arrested because of her involvement in the resistance movement against Trujillo, Mate is jailed in a cell that is 25 by 20 feet with twenty-four other women. While in prison, she keeps a journal about the daily events of her life. Within this journal, she frequently discusses her struggles to nurture her mind, body and spirit. She believes that this process of nurturing is central to her ability both to survive and to continue to participate within the political resistance movement. In her journal entry dated March 30 (69 days), she discusses the importance of “keep[ing] a schedule to ward off the panic that sometimes comes over [her]” (Alvarez 1994, 235). This schedule includes a variety of activities, such as attending the Little school that was developed by her sister Minerva and writing in her journal (mind), walking around the cell for half an hour (body) and thinking about home and helping others (spirit). Maintaining this schedule is not an easy task because Mate is perpetually concerned with the threat of despair and the possibility of losing hope and “letting herself go” (Alvarez 1994, 236). But, she continues to follow this schedule because survival on the physical, mental and spiritual level is her ultimate goal.
II. Courage as the pursuit of dignity and humanity
In addition to its emphasis on risking life, this traditional understanding of courage also focuses on the pursuit of glory and honor. According to Brown, this glory is a result of the knowledge, by the hero, that his practice of political courage has provided him with “a prestige of greatness” (1988, 183) and has served a higher purpose. He has achieved fame and secured his place in history. “He can feel the satisfaction,” Brown argues, “of holding a nerve-fiber of history in his hands” (1988, 183).
In her essay, “Anti-anti-identity politics: feminism, democracy, and the complexities of citizenship,” Susan Bickford contrasts this pursuit of personal honor and glory with the pursuit of dignity and humanity. For her, practicing political courage should not foreclose the possibility of expressing outrage, anger or sorrow over the political situation. The goal of acting courageously is to be able to effectively use—not surpress—the emotion that has inspired one to act in the first place. It is the ability to “sit down and weep, and still be counted as warriors” (Bickford 1997, 125) or express one’s anger in forceful and productive ways. This practice of courage is also the pursuit of compassion and understanding for one’s self and others. It includes listening to and respecting the stories of others and “showing who one is, in disclosing and exposing one’s self” to others (Bickford 1996, 68-69, quoting Arendt 1958, 186).
In her journal entries, Mate also discusses this pursuit of dignity and humanity. In one entry dated Friday (I think) she writes:
You think that you’re going to crack any day, but the strange thing is that every day you surprise yourself by pulling it off, and suddenly you start feeling stronger, like maybe you are going to make it through this hell with some dignity, some courage, and most important—never forget this Mate—with some love still in your heart for the men who have done this to you.
Julia Alvarez, 241
Mate believes that her ultimate goal is to leave the prison with respect (and love) for herself and others still intact.
She expresses this respect and love through her continued efforts to help and share with others. “I know I’ve been reluctant to share certain things,” she writes in an entry dated Tuesday morning, June 28 (a bad night), “but I usually reflect a moment and end up giving most of my things away. I always check with everyone to see if no one else wants the lamp a certain night, and I never hog my turn at the window for fresh air or drying laundry” (Alvarez 1994, 245). For Mate, her ability to share not only helps others, but also demonstrates that she has not given those that have imprisoned her what they want; she has not become less than human (Alvarez 1994, 227).
This dignity and compassion is also expressed in Mate’s willingness to compassionately listen to the stories of her fellow prisoners. In an entry dated Monday afternoon, July 11, quiet time, she recounts her conversation with Magdelena about their life stories. Telling a story that is sad “enough to break [Mate’s] heart,” Magdalena explains that she is in jail for attempting to get back the child that was stolen from her. Mate’s compassion for Magdalena is expressed through the way in which she sympathetically listens to Magdalena’s story and embraces her afterwards. And, this compassion is expressed through Mate’s willingness to let Magdalena share her story and to document that story in her journal.
III. Courage as collective action
If the traditional understanding of courage involves the risking of life for the pursuit of honor and glory, then this courage is practiced by an hero (male) individual, one who may act for a community but not from a community. This traditional heroic figure is understood to be isolated from his community. He must “have distance both to things and to men” (Brown 1988, 168) and stand above and beyond the activities and concerns of that community.
Feminist critiques and reconstructions of courage have frequently rejected this understanding of the lone hero in favor of an emphasis on community within political action. According to these feminists, individuals may act in courageous ways, but these actions are not purely the result of individual will and strength. Individuals act from and within communities.
Communities provide individuals with the strength and support to engage in political actions. According to bell hooks, her ability to resist or talk back to those who attempted to silence her came from her female ancestors and their “legacy of defiance, of will, of courage” (hooks 1990, 210). Susan Bickford echoes this understanding in her discussion of communities. She argues that our strength to courageously act is developed within the communities “with whom we believe our lot is cast” (1997, 120). In describing these communities, she claims:
Our strength may come from those around whom we grew up, those who taught us our racial heritage, incited out religious passions, constituted our ethnic of economic or sexual milieu. As we live on, our strength my come from others discovered or created as an “us,” those with whom we come to share a set of ethics, a politics, a set of practices—a movement of feminists, say, or of radical artists.
Susan Bickford, 120
This sense of community and solidarity is repeatedly mentioned in Mate’s journal entries. Mate believes that her ability to survive and to maintain the courage to act is strongly connected to the atmosphere of nurturing and support that is present among her cellmates. For example, in her entry dated Sunday, March 20 (59 days) she recounts the generosity of these cellmates in their offer to give her their precious allotment of time in front of the window. This willingness to sacrifice “their ten minutes of feasting on the world” because they saw that Mate was crying, raised Mate’s spirits and gave her the support that she needed to continue (Alvarez 1994, 229-230).
In another example, in her entry dated Tuesday March 22 (61 days) she discusses the much needed comfort that she received from her sister Minerva during her emotional breakdown. “Thank God,” she writes, “Minerva saw in time what was going on. She crawled in my bunk and held me, talking soft and remindful to me of all the things that I had to live and be patient for” (Alvarez 1994, 231). And, in a third example in an entry dated Saturday April 2 (72 days) Mate describes the inspirational and transformative power of the prisoners’ collective support for Minerva. Mate writes that the other prisoners called out to Minerva and to the guards: “Mariposa [Minerva’s revolutionary name] does not belong to herself alone…Then everyone was beating on the bars, calling out, ¡Viva la Mariposa! Tears came to my eyes. Something big and powerful spread its wings inside me. Courage, I told myself. And this time, I felt it” (Alvarez 1994, 238).
For Mate, this importance of community extends beyond a system of support. It is within this supportive community that she develops her political goals, but it is also through this community that she courageously acts on these goals. Mate understands her prison community to be a model for the new revolution and she believes that the acts of compassion and love that are practiced by the prison women serve as the “invisible needle stitching us together into the glorious, free nation we are becoming” (Alvarez 1994, 239).
IV. Courage as acting through fear
In the traditional understanding, courage is exercised by strong, seemingly invincible male heroes who stand above and beyond the daily concerns and threats of life. These heroes, which are often soldiers or warriors, are depicted as fearless men who do not express vulnerability or cowardice. They are physically (and mentally) strong, brave and ready to give their lives to the political cause for which they are fighting.
Feminists have criticized this depiction of the courageous hero and its linkage between strength, bravery and fearlessness. In an essay entitled “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” Audre Lorde argues that fear is a powerful source for change. Courage does not come from moving beyond fear or putting it aside for the sake of political goals. Courage comes from the recognition that fear will never go away and therefore must be worked through. If “we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us,” she argues. “We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired…”(1984, 44).
Bernice Johnson Reagon also takes up this point in her essay “Coalition Politics: Turning the Century.” In addition to arguing that fear is an inevitable emotion in political action, she claims that if fear and discomfort are not being experienced within political work, then that work will be less effective in achieving its goals. In describing this work Reagon argues, “[m]ost of the time you feel threatened to the core and if you don’t, you’re not really doing no coalescing” (1983, 356). For Reagon, political courage involves the ability to recognize that you are afraid, to accept the fact that political action makes you “feel as if [you’re] gonna keel over any minute and die” (1983, 356) and to continue to act anyway.
Mate’s journal entries echo Lorde’s and Reagon’s understanding of fear. In an entry dated March 17 (56 days) Mate writes:
The fear is the worst part. Every time I hear footsteps coming down the hall, or the clink of the key turning in the l
ock, I’m tempted to curl up in the corner like a hurt animal, whimpering, wanting to be safe. But I know if I do that, I’ll be giving in to a low part of myself, and I’ll feel even less human. And that is what they want to do, yes, that is what they want to do.
Julia Alvarez, 227
In this entry Mate does not deny the fear that is present in her experience as a political prisoner. Instead she acknowledges this fear and refuses to let it stop her from acting. She believes that the working through of this fear is an essential part of maintaining her sanity and humanity.
These ideas are also reflected in Mate’s description of her emotional breakdown in an entry dated Tuesday, March 22 (61 days). In this entry, Mate writes about experience of overwhelming panic and fear “that [she] would never ever get out of here [prison]” (Alvarez 1994, 231). Although she is frightened by this panic, Mate also realizes that expressing and dealing with it is very important. “The alternative,” she writes, “is freezing yourself up…[t]hen one day, you’re out of here, free, only to discover you’ve locked yourself up and thrown away the key somewhere too deep inside your heart
V. Courage as the act of writing
Finally, the traditional, masculine understanding of courage is frequently associated with extraordinary physical acts. The practice of courage is the practice of soldiers or warriors who assert their strength. In her article, “Dissident Citizenship: democratic theory, political courage, and activist women,” Holloway Sparks describes some examples of this type of courage: “Soldiers, firefighters, police officers…are said to demonstrate courage when they face personal danger; for example, the soldier who shields a comrade from a grenade, the person who enters a burning building to make sure no one is trapped…” (Sparks 1997, 92).
Feminists have argued that there are acts of courage that do not privilege physical strength. Although these acts are physical may result in risk, they involve a different type of act, one that is not predicated on violence. bell hooks discusses such an act in her essay “talking back.” She describes her practice of resistance and courage as writing and talking back, of speaking when not spoken to and “captur[ing] speech, hold[ing] onto it, keep[ing] it close” (hooks 1990, 208). The act of writing, first furtively practiced in hidden diaries then later published in books, enables hooks to express herself and establish her place in the world. This expression is courageous because writing is always accompanied by the “fear of exposure, the fear that one’s deepest emotions and innermost thoughts will be dismissed as mere nonsense…” (hooks 1990, 208).
For hooks, the act of writing can be explicitly political and extend beyond expressions of herself. She offers her words as a tribute to those voices that are not heard and as a way of “bear[ing] witness to the primacy of resistance struggle in any situation of domination…to the strength and power that emerges from sustained resistance and the profound conviction that these forces can be healing, can protect us from dehumanization and despair” (1990, 209).
In In the Time of the Butterflies, Mate envisions her journal entries to be involved in bearing witness to the resistance struggle that she, her sister and their fellow prisoners are experiencing. On Friday, March 18 (57 days) she writes: “It feels good to write things down. Like there will be a record” (ALvarez 1990, 227). Through her writings, Mate is able to document both the horrible treatment of the prisoners—lack of food, poor living conditions, extreme physical abuse—and their courageous acts of resistance—standing up to the guards, facing their fears, creating community.
But, Mate’s act of journal writing does not simply bear witness to the courageous resistance of the women, it is also an act of courage in itself. This courage is evidenced through her daily recording of prison life. The notebook in which she writes had to be smuggled in by a sympathetic guard and her daily entries must be done in secret. With each entry that she makes, Mate recognizes that she is putting herself at extreme risk.
This courage is also evidenced in her use of writing to communicate with the outside world. Mate develops a political statement with her sister Minerva that details the mistreatment that the prisoners have received. She is chosen to secretly deliver this statement, which is signed the Fourteenth of June movement, to the Organization of American States Peace Committee. Fully recognizing the danger she is putting herself in, Mate delivers the statement and shortly afterwards all of the women prisoners are released.
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Through Mate’s journals entries from prison, Julia Alvarez is able to redefine courage. In contrast to the classic definition of courage as risking life by an heroic man for the purpose of achieving honor and immortality she envisions courage as a practice that sustains life, values dignity, is performed collectively, acknowledges fear and does not privilege violence. This understanding has important implications for a feminist theory of politics and political action. First, this redefinition of courage values activities and individuals that are not traditionally seen as courageous. In particular, this definition disrupts the close (and closed) connection between masculinity and courage, claiming that women also perform courageous acts.
Second, this redefinition of courage complicates and expands the traditional notion of the State and participation with and/or against that State. The inclusion of activities such as community building, writing, and sustaining life, indicates that political activity within the State is broader than traditional definitions may suggest. For, it is not the case in Alvarez’s novel that traditionally feminine acitivities, which exist outside of the State, are simply valued as just as important as those activities done by men within and/or against the State. In In the Time of Butterflies, the activities of Mate and her cellmates are State activities. Through their practices within prision, these women are actively involved in resisting the State.
Third, and in connection with the other two implications, this redefinition of courage challenges us to reconsider how we value different political activities. If we consider Mate’s acts of writing, compassion, community-building to be acts of courageous resistance to Trujillo’s regime and we also consider more traditional acts of resistance, such as physically standing up to the guards or refusing to back down under extreme torture to be courageous, then we must redefine what counts as political action and participation with the State and we must reassess the amount of value that we give to these different activities. These implications raise some important questions for the study of political courage. Does the expansion of courage to include other activities, such as writing and community building, make the term too broad? Are some activities more courageous than others? How do we make such a determination? And finally, is it necessary to do so? What are the implications for saying one act is more courageous than another?
WORKS CITED
Alvarez, Julia. In the Time of Butterflies. New York: Plume, 1994.
Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958.
Bickford, Susan. The Dissonance of Democracy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.
———. “Anti-anti-identity politics: feminism, democracy, and the complexities of citizenship.” Hypatia. 12(4) 1997:111-131.
Brown, Wendy. Manhood and Politics. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield, 1988.
———. States of Injury. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.
hooks, bell. “Talking Back.” Making Face, Making Soul Haciendo Caras. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Foundation Books, 1990: 207-211.
Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider. Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1984.
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. “Coalition Politics: Turning the Century.” Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology. New York: Kitchen Table Press, 1983: 356-368.
Sparks, Holloway. “Dissident citizenship: democratic theory, political courage, and activist women.” Hypatia 12(4):74-111.