Famous Final Scene

Maybe you don’t need a pep talk at this point. Maybe you've seen too many of them lately.

I mean, who could put it better than William Wallace in Braveheart when he tells his battle-ready troops before heading off to war with the British: “Every man dies, but not every man lives.” Of course, I guess he meant women too, but then, who knows what lurks in the heart of Mel?

And then there’s Aragorn at the final battle in The Return of the King, leading his weary fellowship against Sauron’s fading might: “I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you, stand, Men of the West.”

Or Mats Sundin to his battle-scarred Leafs on the night of the season’s last game: “There’s nothing left to say. We’ve got to just go out and play hard and try our best to win.”

But then there’s the wise and magnificent, Yoda: “There is no try, only do or do not.”

Which brings me to me. What advice have I left? Do I even have it in me to say the words that you need. (Imagine me saying this with a half-smile on my face, while maintaining an air of earnestness.) What can I say at this point that will make a difference?

Let’s try some sports cliché’s, shall we? It’s do-or-die. Backs against the wall. No holds barred. There is no tomorrow.

Except there actually is a tomorrow. And nobody ever died from writing a mediocre exam. And your backs won’t be against the wall. Your seats are more in the middle of the gymnasium, just to the right, really. So, no, sports cliché’s won’t do. You’ll need something more.

The thing about English is this: just speak truth. Know your characters, but know yourself first and how you respond to those characters and the truth that they represent.

That’s better, but not quite it.

How about this: when I was your age….no, no, no! Can’t say that. Can’t even think that.

Hmmm….

If I was writing this exam tomorrow, I simply would know the novels really well. You can pretty much guess what the questions will be, more or less.

Go through each character in these novels and ask yourself what they stand for and how can you possibly prove it. Get inside the minds of these characters and ask yourself what they most want, what they most fear, and whether or not they get what they want. Or, as the Stones would sing, do they sometimes just get what they need? That goes for the good and the bad characters. The Draper Doyles and the Aunt Phils. The Dr. Jekylls and the Mr. Uttersons and Hydes. The Holden Caulfields and the Phoebe Caulfields. And who are all those minor characters? The Sally Hayes person and the Father Seymours? The Henry Clervals and the Grandmother Macleods, not to mention the Noreens and the Elizabeth Frankensteins! What do they all desire, and do they get it? What do they each fear?

I think, in the end, we all just want…

…truth?

No. Truth can hurt sometimes. We often can’t handle the truth.

…freedom?

Maybe? Is it freedom we want more than anything? Freedom to do what? To be what? Freedom to choose, to be who we want to be, without restrictions, without anyone else playing the authority figure over us, telling us what to do and how to do it, or what to be. Freedom from persecution. Freedom from lies. Freedom to face the truth on our own terms and decide for ourselves how to deal with, what to do about it.

That’s what these characters want, isn’t it? Self-governance. Freedom. Peace of mind. As elusive as it is. As impossible as it is.

It might even be that the thing fear the most is freedom. Because that would mean we are also responsible for ourselves. We can blame no one for our state of being, whatever is, but ourselves.
Holden Caulfield is really free to do as he pleases; he just can’t see it, and that’s a big part of his problem. Vanessa? Free as a bird. Victor? Could have been somebody. Could have been a contend-uh. He was so smart, with so many privileges, he could have been anything, done anything, he wanted. Dr. Jekyll? Wants freedom, gets freedom, can’t handle freedom. End of story. Draper Doyle Ryan? He and his whole, entire family just want freedom, and it’s there for the taking. So they do.

Up until they get freedom, they’re just afraid of it.

I’m not saying that this entire exam is about freedom. It’s not. Not by a long shot. There's so much more to talk about, as you know. But then again, the bottom line here (pardon the cliché) is that you’re free to choose which questions to answer and how you answer them. You’re even free to choose not to answer any questions, but I hope you won’t go that route. Freedom comes with a price sometimes, unfortunately. It’s built-in like a package deal.

But seize the opportunity. Carpe diem! Don’t be afraid to say something wrong. Say what’s in your heart to say. But say in an intelligent, controlled, articulate way: otherwise, it’s like a king in the back row—power that’s wasted.

You’ve spent four months (eight months really, going back to English 1080) improving your powers of communication. So now’s the time to just say what you’ve been wanting to say all semester long about these characters. If you’ve got nothing to say, well, you’re just not trying (or doing, as Yoda would say). You know these characters now. You’ve lived with them for weeks. You know who they are, what they want, what they fear, and how they live on a daily basis.

So what do you have to say about them?

“This is no place for Hobbits,” Gandalf the Grey has said. And it’s true. The exam is meant to offer you the chance to show what you know, not what you don’t know.

So write what you know.

See you tomorrow. Have some fun with it. And use your nervous energy to blaze truth, wax wit, and wager philosophy.

Don’t play defensively. Come fully armed and ready to wrestle truth to the ground.

But then, I’m not much for speeches.

May the force...oh, never mind.

Gerard