"Oh, man, this is my favorite freaking' quote."
What professor wouldn't like to hear a student enthuse so much over a Shakespeare play - a Shakespeare history play, no less! And then to be able to flip open the two-thousand-page Complete Works of Shakespeare and find the quote immediately: "When that this body did contain a spirit, a kingdom for it was too small a bound"!
He smacks the book as he finishes reading. Meanwhile, I'm still scrambling to find the quote somewhere in Henry the Fourth, Part One.
Description:
Just imagine yourself as a 17-year-old boy, a fifth-grade dropout, in court facing the death penalty for your involvement in a random murder of a stranger. Advice from your family is to plead guilty and accept whatever the court gives you in order to escape execution.
The verdict: a life sentence with no possibility of parole, no appeal of the sentence, and incarceration at a juvenile and then an adult prison - mostly in solitary confinement. For the rest of your life. And you are only 17.
Such is the fate of Larry Newton, depicted in Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary with the Bard by Laura Bates. Newton went to jail as a teen, spent 10 years in solitary confinement, stabbed a guard, lead a prison riot, had several escape attempts, and in general was angry at the world, himself, and life.
Enter Laura Bates, a professor at Indiana State University and prison volunteer who had been going inside the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Indiana to teach classes for prisoners pursuing undergraduate degrees.
In 2000 she was allowed to teach several prisoners in the supermax portion of the prison, the solitary confinement section that housed the most violent of men. Her goal was to read and discuss Shakespeare with these prisoners, seemingly an absurd notion.
But Bates reasoned that these prisoners would relate to the ambition, violence, murder, and revenge portrayed in the plays. She hoped that familiarity with these situations and themes would create discussion among the prisoners and her about their experiences with human psychology, social pressures, behavior, and punishment.
In the supermax, she met Newton, the man with the most violent history, but also with one of the brightest minds. "Met" does not exactly describe their first encounter. For these sessions, Bates had to sit on a folding chair in an empty area surrounded by four blank, solid doors of the solitary confinement cells. Her only view of the four prisoners in her class was via a small slot in each man's solid iron door where they received their food. They cannot see each other, can barely see her, and must talk with faces pressed against that rectangular slot.
Newton responds to one of the first readings Bates gives the men, the soliloquy from Richard II delivered from Richard's prison cell. Dialogue between Newton and the prisoners soon arises about the meaning and relevance of "fortune's slaves" and predetermination. Newton reasons that Shakespeare might have done time in prison for his accurate portrayal of the thoughts Richard feels while pacing inside his cell, the most common activity of prisoners according to Newton.
Newton becomes the leader of these classes, asking insightful questions and encouraging dialog among the solitary prisoners. Bates later even asks him to create a teaching packet based on his questions for other prisoners outside of the program to learn about Shakespeare's themes. His packets contain discussion questions for Macbeth, King John, Hamlet, and other plays. He and others in solitary write their own versions of Romeo and Juliet and other plays which are performed by prisoners in the regular prison population. Of course, Newton and his fellow playwrights cannot attend.
Shakespeare Saved My Life tells a bittersweet story. It's not always a pretty picture, but the book honestly shows the environment of these men, their complete lack of control and decision-making regarding any aspect of their lives, and their limited opportunities to improve their minds. Hanging over each page is the realization that Newton is in prison forever, no matter his intelligence or positive influence in spreading the thoughts of Shakespeare to his fellow inmates.
But the book succeeds over and over in recalling the discussions with Newton and others, their probing new theories about about the motivation of Shakespeare's characters, and the repeated examples that show the Bard created situations, people, and actions that still ring true 400 years later, even to men behind bars. Professor and prisoner, together and alone, expand their awareness about the completely different life in existance outside their own world.
A fantastic book, intriguing, and eye-opening on many levels.
Happy reading.
Fred
www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com
If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
Lowrie, David. My Life in Prison
Memoirs of a man sentenced to 15 years in San Quentin in the early 1900s, He intelligently and compassionately describes the ordinary people incarcerated there, all aspects of the prison life, and even the torture of solitary confinement and the early version of the straight jacket. Fascinating, riveting reading.
Asimov, Isaac. Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare
Absolutely the best book for general readers to understand each of Shakespeare's plays, with historic background, significant passages, insight into motivation, explanation of Renaissance themes and word plays, and more to make any Shakespeare play understandable and enjoyable. Fantastic. [Previously reviewed on this blog.]
