Phillip Lopate’s “The Art of the Personal Essay” is a collection of assorted personal essays from amazing and celebrated writers, for example, Wendell Berry and Wole Soyinka. Two great essays from Lopate’s book would have to be Wendell Berry’s “An Entrance to the Woods”, which is a stellar essay about his renunciations, and Wole Soyinka’s “Why Do I Fast?”, which is about Soyinka’s sacrifices throughout his time in prison.
Before I go further into the essays, let me give you some background information on both authors, starting with Wendell Berry. This great author and essayist is also considered a saint in environmental circles through his efforts to protect the Earth’s ecological balance. At a young age, Berry was already exposed to nature and ethics through his tobacco farming, lawyer father, who was also a widely published journalist. (John M. Berry’s journalism career began with his hometown newspaper, the Johnson City, “Tennessee Press-Chronicle”. Mr. Berry’s work has also appeared in “Fortune”, “International Economy”, “Financier”, “Central Banking” and other American and foreign publications.) His son, Wendell Berry’s stories, essays, and poems are mostly about the outdoors and nature. In 2006, Wendell Berry won the Kentuckian of the Year Award from “Kentucky Monthly” for his writing and his efforts to bring attention towards environmental issues in eastern Kentucky. Some of his well-known works are “Whitefoot”, “The Long-Legged House”, “The Broken Ground”, as well as “The Mad Farmer Poems”.
Wole Soyinka is a political activist and in 1967, he was imprisoned without charge or trial during the Nigerian Civil War. The Nigerian Civil War was a political conflict that was caused by the southeastern provinces of Nigeria when they tried to become the Republic of Biafra. This conflict arose because of economic, ethnic, cultural, and religious tensions among the Nigerian people. Soyinka’s attempt to lessen the warfare and work toward peace in 1967, as well as his commitment to promote human rights resulted in his arrest and imprisonment without trial by the federal military government. He later won a Nobel Peace Prize in Literature in 1986. This unfair treatment caused him to go on a fast and later, write about his own strength and willpower.
Willpower is as important as water in these stories and is the overarching theme of both essays. But what is willpower? Willpower is basically one’s determination to do something. It is marked by persistence and utilizing one’s strength to accomplish anything one decides to do. In “Why Do I Fast?” and “An Entrance to the Woods”, both authors must have willpower to achieve what they set out to do. Willpower is a catalyst for movement of your state of mind and without it, nothing would get done. For example, Martin Luther King Jr. had the willpower to talk to an audience and move them to action. After the speeches, he went out and led movements, for example, boycotting the buses. Too much willpower, however, can be a bad thing. Adolf Hitler is an example of this: his will was too strong and he slaughtered and tortured people because his will directed him to outrageous activity.
There are three very important terms connected to “Why Do I Fast?” and “An Entrance to the Woods” through the authors’ actions. Willpower is one of them as discussed above. Willpower has two important aspects evident in these essays: sacrifice and renunciation. To sacrifice means to give up a valuable possession, to kill an animal or person as an offering, as well as to give up a valuable item for something that is more worthy or important. To renounce is when you are giving something up voluntarily and to formally reject an idea, belief, claim, etc, for another, totally different concept.
Through sacrifice, Soyinka gains the satisfaction of feeling like he can do anything. He gains the will power to do pretty much anything; he feels that, “I need neither drink nor food. Soon I shall need no air” (pg 456). Soyinka also gains the sense of desirelessness as he says, “I need nothing. I feel nothing. I desire nothing”(pg 457). These actions of willpower cause Soyinka to move from one state of mind – desiring food and drink – to another – desirelessness. Soyinka’s actions make him believe and feel that he is now superhuman. Also, Soyinka appears to be outside of his own body while still in his own body; a complicated concept, no? While he is still physically in his own body, his mind seems to be on a new level of consciousness, which is another example about how willpower is a catalyst for movement. Soyinka accesses his emotions by going on this fast. Soyinka tells us that “Only sunsets prove to be unbearable, for while sound are muted, colors are intensified, and the sunset turns raw, cannibalistic, fanged, and blooded as if the drooling demon of day is sinking its teeth in the lap of a loud lascivious courtesan, reeking of gore” (page 455). This is the most unbearable time of the day for him. His fast is causing a great hunger, and the colors of the sunset – purple, pink red, etc. – seem like food to him and cause him pain. In this situation, willpower is a catalyst for movement because Soyinka, we can assume, did not feel this way about sunsets before he went on his fast, which took a lot of willpower and sacrificing on his part.
Through renouncing his familiar milieu and his “running inner tempo,” Berry gains calmness, relaxation, and a “walking inner tempo”, or, as he puts it: “Once off the freeway, my pace gradually slowed, as the roads became more primitive, from seventy miles an hour to a walk,” (pg 672) and “Slowly my mind and my nerves have slowed to a walk” (pg 678). In this case, while Berry is renouncing the surroundings that are familiar to him, his state of being changes. He moves from hurried and restless to calm and tranquil. Berry accesses new emotions by leaving his surroundings and traveling to the woods of Kentucky to relieve himself of stress. Berry, successful in rendering his emotions to the reader, explains that he is peculiarly upset because, “When I finally realize that it is only a sound the creek is making, though I have not come here for company and do not want any, I am inexplicably sad” (pg 671). Before this, he was not sad to be by himself, but now, in his first few hours in the woods, he is upset to be without company.
In conclusion, willpower is a catalyst for movement. In its form of renunciation, which Berry experienced, it causes him to move from a busy tempo to a slow, peaceful one. It also enabled him to feel comfortable in the woods, which, in the beginning, was a feeling of loneliness. In willpower’s form of sacrifice, Soyinka was able to move from one state of mind to another; before his long fast, we can assume he was in a normal state of mind where his consciousness was in his body, but after and during his fast, his consciousness was somehow outside of his body. Therefore, willpower is a catalyst for movement and in turn, so are sacrificing and renouncing.