Major Essay

Eddie Korth

Matthew Wilsey-Cleveland

WRTG 3020

June 26, 2010

Word Count: 1,593

Major Essay

Albert Camus’s theories of rebellion portrayed in Camus’s text “The Rebel” demonstrate the ability one person has to change social norms by rebelling against them. An act of defiance by one person inspires a collective group to rebel against a social injustice. Camus’s theories are also present in Michael Cunningham’s short story “White Angel”, a story of two young brothers, Carlton and Frisco, who rebel against the dreary everyday life they experience in their hometown of Cleveland, by experimenting with drugs and women in a cemetery behind their house. Camus’s theory regarding the power an individual person has when they rebel against social norms is demonstrated by Rosa Parks when she defied an order to move to the back of a segregated bus in 1955. This individual act of rebellion against the violation of her civil rights helped pave the way for the collective rebellion and protests featured at the march on Washington for jobs and freedom of 1963. Collective rebellions, which directly cause change, would not be possible without individual rebellion as a foundation, as demonstrated in Cunningham’s short story “White Angel” and the African-American civil rights movement.

Cunningham’s short story “White Angel” demonstrates how individual rebellion evolves into social rebellion. Cunningham tells the story of Frisco and his older brother Carlton who grow up in a boring and uneventful suburb of Cleveland. They have lots of free time on their hands, but do not have a place in their town for children their age to spend it so instead they spend most of their time experimenting with drugs and alcohol. The two brothers try to stay out of their parents way as their parents conservative viewpoints do not mesh with the children’s wild lifestyles and dreams of Woodstock(Cunningham 231). The parents and children keep their distance until Carlton decides to invite his friends over to crash his parent’s cocktail party(Cunningham 238). His friends come over and although it starts out as an awkward experience, both the children and parents begin to let their guards down and mingle amongst themselves (Cunningham 239). Frisco describes the surprising scene unfolding in front of him “Call it an accident of history and the weather. Carlton’s friends are on decent behavior and our parents’ friends have decided to give up some of their wine-and-folk-song propriety to see what they can learn”(Cunningham 239). The individual rebellion of Carlton evolves into a collective rebellion as both age groups defy social norms by mingling and dancing with other guests outside their comfort zone(Cunningham 239).

The distinction between individual and collective rebel is demonstrated in Cunningham’s short story “White Angel” through the two children Carlton and Frisco respectively. Carlton, the older of the two brothers, rebels against the social norms of society through his drug and alcohol use. Even though Carlton’s rebellion seems like senseless drug use it does serve a purpose. Carlton’s goal of moving to Woodstock, even though the festival is already over, is fueled by his desire to be able to live his life the way he wants to, with the ability to take drugs and be part of a movement bigger than himself(Cunningham 231). Carlton manages Frisco’s skepticism about the reality of Woodstock by reassuring him “Man you’ve got to stop asking that. The concert’s over but people are still there. It’s the new nation. Have Faith”(Cunningham 231). Stuck in dreary suburban Cleveland, Carlton decides to start his new nation at home by inviting his friends and parents to get together and experience new views on music, politics and life. The success of the party gets overshadowed when Carlton, on drugs at the time, runs through a sliding glass door window and ends up bleeding to death. Carlton’s death, seemingly a casualty of drug use, was not in vain because he was able to see his goal fulfilled of a new nation through the mixing of his friends and his parents friends. Carlton is also considered a true rebel by Camus who writes “If the individual, in fact, accepts death and happens to die as a consequence of his act of rebellion, he demonstrates by doing so that he is willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of a common good which he considers more important than his own destiny”(15).

Cunningham contrasts Carlton’s individual rebellion with his younger brother Frisco’s collective rebellion in the short story “White Angel”. While Carlton is working towards a goal bigger than him self of unifying people across social boundaries, Frisco is just along for the ride, looking up to his big brother and trying to be like him. It is understandable that Frisco can only support the rebellion by following along as he is only nine years old, even though he is very advanced for his age(Cunningham 230). Frisco credits his wild streak to Carlton remembering “I was, thanks to Carlton, the most criminally advanced nine-year-old in my fourth-grade class. I was going places. I made no move without his counsel”(Cunningham 230). While Carlton was the leader of the rebellion, Frisco found ways to help support the new nation and fill the role of collective rebel. Frisco, being interrogated by his mother, who believes that Carlton is on drugs, questions Frisco about his brother’s drug use. Frisco does not tell his mother the truth instead defying his mother by walking away, “I leave the kitchen, pretending sudden interest in the cat. Our mother follows holding her brush. She means to scrub the truth out of me. I follow the cat, his erect black tail and pink anus”(234 Camus). This act of rebellion would not be possible without the individual rebellion originally provided by Carlton and demonstrates Camus’s theories of rebellion.

Camus’s theory of individual rebellion is also demonstrated in the famous 1955 arrest of Rosa Parks, an African-American, for illegally sitting in a bus seat reserved for white passengers. Parks lived in Montgomery, Alabama at the beginning of the civil rights moment and experienced segregation and prejudice daily. The south, and particularly Alabama, was not a welcoming place towards African-Americans in the 1950’s. On the evening of December 5^th 1955, Parks was coming home from her job as a tailor’s assistant when she boarded a moderately crowded bus. At the time state law forced African-Americans to sit in the last five rows of the bus, but if no white people were on the bus and needed seats they could sit in a zone called no mans land(Gilliam D3). However, if white customers got onto the bus African-Americans would have to surrender their seats(Gilliam D3). When a white customer boarded the bus Parks was asked to move to the back and refused (Gilliam D3). The bus driver called the police and Parks was arrested. She was the first person to be charged in Montgomery for violating the law(Fields A21). Parks represents Camus’s theory of the individual rebel by standing up for herself. Asked later in her life about the famous incident on the bus, Parks replied “I spontaneously made that decision – without any leadership”(Gilliam D3). Parks also told reporters “You can’t be told what to do. You have to be motivated; you have to feel that you will not be pushed around”(Gilliam D3). Parks’s bold stance on behalf of her civil rights is an example of Camus’s theory of individual rebellion because she is looking out for her civil rights and her own personal interests.

Parks’s history of being mistreated and abused led to her being forced to rebel against the prejudice she faced every day. In his essay published shortly after Parks death, Peter Dreir cites Parks recalling her rebellion, “I had almost a life history of being rebellious against being mistreated because of my color”(Dreier 88). Parks defiance of segregation laws, and the local police, demonstrate Camus’s theory that eventually the rebel can not tolerate any more injustice. Camus writes “He means, for example, that ‘this has been going on too long,’ ‘up to this point yes, beyond it no,” ‘you are going too far,’ or, again, ‘there is a limit beyond which you shall not go”(13). The rebellion of Parks started as an individual rebellion but quickly became a collective rebellion when she became the face of civil rights movement across the United States. Davis W. Houck writes about the evolution of the civil rights movement through Parks in his text Women and the Civil Rights Movement, “By refusing to move, Parks set into motion a remarkable chain of events that would forever alter America’s race relations: a 381-day citywide bus boycott; the founding of the Montgomery Improvement Association; the leadership of a young Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr.”(Houck 38). Parks individual rebellion became the foundation for a collective rebellion of million of African-Americans across the United States. The success of the civil rights movement demonstrated Camus’s theory stating “with rebellion, awareness is born” (15).

The rebellions of the fictional characters in the short story “White Angel” and real life in the civil rights movement both demonstrate the different styles of rebellion illustrated in Camus’s text “The Rebel”. Collective rebellion, which directly causes change, would not be possible without a foundation of individual rebellious leaders starting the movement. The civil rights movement finally began to gain steam once a face was put to it, and that face was Parks. The individual rebel must decide that they have had faced enough oppression and will do anything to force change, even death.(Camus 15). Collective rebellion is built upon multiple acts of individual rebellion.

Work Cited

Dreier, Peter. “Rosa Parks: Angry, Not Tired.” Dissent 53.1 (2006): 88-92.

Fields, Suzanne. “The History Lesson From Rosa Parks; A Single Act of Responsibility Changes a Nation’s Heart.” The Washington Times 31 October 2005: A21. Print.

Gilliam, Dorothy. “Rosa Parks Proves What One Person Can Do.” The Washington Post 5 February 1990: D3. Print.

Houck, David. Women and the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965. Oxford, Mississippi : Association of American University Presses, 2009. <NOR E 185.61 W828 2009>