"When they discover the anti-Semitism of Wharton or Dostoyevsky, the racism of Walt Whitman or Joseph Conrad, the sexism of Ernest Hemingway or Richard Wright, the class snobbery of E. M. Forster or Virginia Woolf, not all of them express their repugnance as dramatically as the student I talked to, but many perform an equivalent exercise, dumping the offending books into a trash basket in their imaginations."
— Morton, Brian (b. July 8, 1955)
Date
January 8, 2019
Metaphor
"When they discover the anti-Semitism of Wharton or Dostoyevsky, the racism of Walt Whitman or Joseph Conrad, the sexism of Ernest Hemingway or Richard Wright, the class snobbery of E. M. Forster or Virginia Woolf, not all of them express their repugnance as dramatically as the student I talked to, but many perform an equivalent exercise, dumping the offending books into a trash basket in their imaginations."
Metaphor in Context
Anyone who’s taught literature in a college or university lately has probably had a conversation like this. The passion for social justice that many students feel--a beautiful passion for social justice--leads them to be keenly aware of the distasteful opinions held by many writers of earlier generations. When they discover the anti-Semitism of Wharton or Dostoyevsky, the racism of Walt Whitman or Joseph Conrad, the sexism of Ernest Hemingway or Richard Wright, the class snobbery of E. M. Forster or Virginia Woolf, not all of them express their repugnance as dramatically as the student I talked to, but many perform an equivalent exercise, dumping the offending books into a trash basket in their imaginations.
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Brian Morton, "Virginia Woolf? Snob! Richard Wright? Sexist! Dostoyevsky? Anti-Semite!" The New York Times Book Review (January 8, 2019). <Link to NYTimes.com>
Date of Entry
01/09/2019
