During one workshop in grad school, my professor, the poet Jane Miller, spoke about the difference between ambiguity and ambivalence. She taught me so much more, but this bit has stayed with me. I found the difference between them could be applied to life and literature. Poems, she said, if they’re good—hold ambiguity in their confines. Ideally, there are a few ways a poem might land—or a few lines that could be interpreted differently. Ambiguity, she said, is desirable in literature while ambivalence is not. When I think of feeling ambivalent, it means I don’t feel one way or another; in fact, if a poem tells me how to feel, I may quit reading, feeling meh, feeling bored. Some poems may obscure; they may have nebulous lines, words, or a confusing surface. But if the energy or emotion of the poem is clear to me—I’m riding on that energy. I’m not ambivalent—I want to keep reading.
Knowing the impact of these two on literature—ambiguity and ambivalence—can be useful for young people. Then, again, they’re easily bored, so they get it. In my final month on the job as a high school humanities tutor, I saw an opportunity to dwell a little with Miller’s gem. Bryson, a ninth grader preparing for his final exam, wanted to write about Holden Caulfield and so we talked about the ambiguous ending of Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Will Holden emerge from the hospital better for having been there? Will he go on to another prep school, and “apply” himself? Or will he crumble again – haunted by the deaths of his brother and the bullied James Castle? Will he become a phony after all or just retreat into the woods as his author did—done with humanity and wanting only solitude and the blank page? We don’t know—that’s the point. He’s in flux, and he always will be because of Salinger’s last page.
Bryson, as usual, listened closely, his eyes bright. We talked about whether we even liked this kid—the cis-gendered, objectifying, privileged white boy. He’s the opposite of both of us, but neither of us could feel ambivalent about him. The character can be polarizing—I didn’t like him when I read the book in high school, and many kids still don’t like him. At least we’re not ambivalent! And yet, we can’t say he doesn’t have heart; we can’t say that he doesn’t care. We see it in how he responds to authentic moments, including watching the “swell” young boy who hums and sings “if a body catch a body coming through the rye.”
As we parted at the end of our last session, Bryson told me how much he appreciated our one year working together to improve his writing. Then he said, “It’s too bad it was only a year I knew you—so I guess this is an ambiguous ending.” Wow! He captured a lot in that remark—the sweetness I’ve felt watching kids grow up. From 9th to 12th is a huge developmental time, and I’ve treasured being a witness to the ways they mature. That I wouldn’t be along to watch Bryson grow, and others in his grade that I immediately connected with, is a huge sadness for me. That I won’t be there to catch more bodies coming through the rye will be a loss—because I liked so much being there for them.
But Bryson and I parted not feeling ambivalent about each other at all. He’s a good football player, I hear. He deservedly won the Character Award. He’s impressed his teachers. I don’t doubt that his curiosity and intelligence will take him far. He wanted to learn to improve his writing, and in a few short months, he knuckled down to it. His writing took off—and is the tool he can now use to demonstrate his sharp mind. And he got it—more than I even intended—that life is full of ambiguous endings—moment to moment—
Literature, of course, should do the same. One classic example is the last stanza of Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
I’ve read these lines so many ways throughout my life, depending on the situation. Today, it’s that retirement means I’m finally pulled to what I’ve been following all along—the miles are the many words I can still commit to the page before that ambiguous final slumber.
But the master of ambiguity is, of course, Emily Dickinson—we “dwell in possibility” in every poem she wrote. How many times have you read a Dickinson poem, thinking you know what’s up, then the last line comes in and pulls the rug out? I spent a lovely decade of my life falling deep into Emily D.—fabricating a story in my book centered around her: [It] Incandescent. I was happy to have gone deep, and to have risen anew.
Looking for a poem to demonstrate the ambiguous Miss D., I opened to one of my favorites:
A solemn thing — it was — I said —
A woman — white — to be —
And wear — if God should count me fit —Her blameless mystery —
A hallowed thing — to drop a life
Into the purple well —
Too plummetless — that it return —
Eternity — until —
I pondered how the bliss would look —
And would it feel as big —
When I could take it in my hand —
As hovering — seen — through fog —
And then — the size of this "small" life —
The Sages — call it small —
Swelled — like Horizons — in my vest —
And I sneered — softly — "small"!
In the eternity of Emily, she’ll wear her odd white dress: dropping this illusory thing we call life was not a problem for her, given her passions—and so, she didn’t much care what others would say. There’s nothing small in it, the reverence for words and for ambiguous endings.
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