A New Framed Image of Private Thought

A New Framed Image of Private Thought

            One of the greatest values in life is to know goodness through experience of evil.  By experience I by no means imply embodiment of evil or even necessarily endurance thereof, but by truly acknowledge evil can it be experienced.  While avoiding a complete digression into defining “good” and “evil”, these inevitable aspects of the human experience can be thought of simply as positive v. negative or joy v. suffering.  Regardless of the framework of these antitheses, one can not be experienced without first experience of the other.

            In the novel A Question of Power by Bessie Head, the main character Elizabeth experiences the absolute pain of internal turmoil.  The visions and characters that make up her fragmented mind drag her to the outermost reaches of human endurance.  In regard for the most evil of these self created entities Dan, “She treasured the encounter with Dan.  The suffering she had endured had sealed her Achille’s heel; that of the brutal murdered for love…He was one of the greatest teachers she’d worked with…he taught the extremes of love and tenderness through the extremes of hate; he taught an alertness for falsehoods within” (Head 202).  Elizabeth realizes that what she had been through; all the suffering, was in fact the key to her release from hell.  This powerful figment of her imagination had actually released her from the binds of madness.

            To some Bessie Head is considered a prophet, to others she is a false prophet.  Embodied in Elizabeth, it is as though she made the ultimate sacrifice to realize a concept of God and to feel a true meaning of life; she created turmoil, pain, and suffering within.  Her experience of evil was not realized externally, but in private thought.  A prophet? True or false?  It is irrelevant. Bessie Head is simply a person who found peace in an idea.  In man she found the source of evil and then ultimately found the power of God.  Her self declaration of attaining a state of “ordinary” makes her no different from any other human being; prophet of otherwise.  “The elegant pathway of private thought stretched ahead of her, shimmering with light and undisturbed by the clamour of horrors”  (head 206).

            Whether by way of physical suffering, turmoil of the soul, “hitting rock bottom”, or simply questioning the frames through which we are led to believe, coming to an honest understanding and optimism within ourselves gives true meaning to life.  The purpose of this “soul-suffering” is to give perspective to our experience and give us a purpose.  Like Elizabeth, we should reexamine the frames through which we see the world and find the peace and joy in the experience of life within.