The Dead Walking: Humanity’s Ecosystem
In the year 2000 David Crystal wrote Language Death in which he predicted that at least half of the world’s languages would become extinct within the next century. As of right now, there are an estimated known 6,909 languages worldwide, which means that if he is right, over 3,000 languages will die in the next hundred years. This is an alarming rate of extinction and is often compared to species extinction. Both are quickly increasing due to the rapid “progress” the human species is achieving. Humankind has achieved world domination, often referred to as the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene, in essence, looks at how and to what extent the dominant species, humanity, affects the climate and environment. The planet consists of many different ecosystems, and not all of them are biological. An ecosystem at its base definition consists of a complex network of living organisms within a physical environment. Within an ecosystem these living organisms rely upon each other for survival. Diversity is necessary for the long term survival of any ecosystem, whether it is a marine ecosystem or the “human ecosystem.” This has become a huge problem environmentally and culturally because of mankind’s industrial influence.
Allison Cobb in Green-Wood, juxtaposes these two seemingly different worlds, the cultural ecosystem and the environmental one, in an unexpected way. She focuses her narrative around the cemetery of the same name, located in Brooklyn, New York. This book revolves around this idea of a cemetery, a resting place for the dead, being built for the living. Green-Wood’s goal is to be an escape from the city, an Eden of sorts, for the living. This is evidenced in the cemetery’s design construction, and constant maintenance of the grounds. The aim of the cemetery is to celebrate the idea of nature and with that, both life and death. Cobb presents this paradox through her poetry and prose in which she showcases her extensive etymological knowledge. Through the many researched words and the exposure of their roots, the reader is confronted time and time again with the fact that Cobb is speaking in English, a living language, while diving into its past. Many of the foundations for these “live” words are dead. Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, to only name a few, are the dead languages from which the English language originates.
Life and death become impossible to detangle throughout Green-Wood. Cobb cultivates a space that acknowledges this duality. She presents this phenomenon through her account of the cemetery, her musings on tragedy and industrialization, her own struggle to create life, and her etymological research. The motif of etymology within the text forces the reader to investigate the deeper implications that lie within the topics she presents. Doing so, the reader is led into a space in which there is no life without death, no progress without destruction, no profit without loss. This dualistic idea creates, paradoxically, a world without dualism, where opposing ideas of life and death, of loss and receipt become interchangeable, and in a sense, become one. The Anthropocene becomes a list of humanity’s gains and the environment’s losses, of which the consequences inevitably fall back on humanity. Culture seems like a war with growth and gain on one side and a quickly dwindling diversity on the other, but in actuality they both are trying to fight for humanity.
Crystal’s Language Death, describes this war and this loss of cultural diversity in terms of language itself. The death of different languages is not a new concept. Languages emerge and disappear, usually along with the rise and fall of the culture they belong to. This relationship between language and culture is extremely important, especially when he emphasizes this idea of a cultural ecosystem. When one of the elements within an ecosystem is damaged, the entire system becomes not only more vulnerable, but more likely to result in unforeseen consequences (Crystal 32). The rise in the language death toll is seemingly a direct consequence of globalization. The term “globalization” holds certain economic connotations but is based mainly on the concept of a business, culture, or organization gaining international influence which stems directly from communication.
Similarly, to the efforts to save the environment, several organizations have cropped up to fight this dwindling diversity caused by a majority gaining more power and influence and minorities losing it. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the World Wide Fund for Nature and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, are just some of the organizations combatting this loss of cultural and linguistic diversity (Amano 1). These efforts are a desperate attempt to change the future, so to speak, because in line with linguistic diversity lies cultural diversity. The theory here is that along with the death of living languages, the cultures they belong to also die. With the loss of a culture comes the loss of the customs and knowledge that belong to those cultures, and is a great loss of humanity itself. This problem is brought to the Green-Wood reader’s attention through the etymological research Cobb practices. Although never explicitly stated, the idea of cultural loss and gain can be seen throughout the narrative in different ways. One major symbol for this lies in the dead roots of living words.
Allison Cobb opens Green-Wood with this short, fragmented poem, forcing the reader already to struggle with this idea of communication, of words:
oh if to die
a regular weak verb
I meant
to be hardly
words a quick
ness the place
Cobb laments the sheer failure that “oh if to die” commits in its attempt at communicating her meaning. The word “die” originates from an Old Germanic “strong verb” *daw-j-an, and becomes, in English a “regular weak verb” meaning “cease to live” (OED). The word “hardly” here allows the reader to recognize that it is not enough. “Hardly” from Middle Dutch, hardelīke, meaning harshly or sternly, but in common, contemporary usage means “barely… to an insignificant degree.” The dualistic nature of “hardly” foreshadows a dualism that lies in the word “death,” and the ambiguous quality of the meanings behind the words. The words begin to feel like they cannot fully express their meanings. The page is completely blank except for these six lines and this forces the reader to begin the habit of looking for more. The cemetery, upon first glance, is beautiful, large, and full. Full of trees, life, and lost loved ones. Initially, the viewer is overwhelmed with the beauty, the “fullness” of the cemetery. There is no reason to look any further. Cobb’s first page is stark and nearly empty. There are no massive trees, or picnic blankets, there is no joy pasted onto the first page. This allows the reader to look more closely at the words themselves, not just at what they say, but at what each one individually means.
She describes the physical appearance of Green-Wood cemetery, the tunnels, the winding paths, the foliage, and what appear to be lists of artifacts left by the grieving left-behind in memoriam. She then goes deeper to describe the corpses themselves resting beneath the cemetery. In a devastating summary of Green-Wood and its inhabitants, Reverend Theodore Cuyler, the father of PRECIOUS GEORGIE says, “Green-Wood is one vast nursery, in which cribs give place to little caskets and coffins, and no one is afraid to speak loud lest they wake up the silent sleepers.” Cobb describes the children that lay there as “little doves and sleeping angels dissolve[ing] into grass” (Cobb 82). The euphemism used here, sleep to describe dead infants, along with the comparison of a nursery that holds cribs and then caskets, allows the reader to view both the beginning of life and the end of it at once. The function of metaphor and euphemism is classically, to soften the blow, yet here these devices have the opposite affect.
The term nursery comes from the Old and Middle French nurrice, a feminine word linked to nurture and nourish, defined by the OED as, “To bring up,” and “to grow.” Green-wood as a nursery brings to the forefront of the reader’s mind a curation of life, especially in reference to children. “Nursery” also holds connotations of planting and gardening, branching the readers focus out from the growth of children to the growth in nature. The caskets imprisoning the children become a symbol of the inescapability of death, leading to a space in which growth becomes impossible. Death of anything is defined as “permanent cessation” (OED). Crystal discusses the impact of too much death when dealing in cultural diversity, as he emphasizes that damage done to any of the elements in any ecosystem usually results in devastating consequences. Death, while inescapable, should be prevented when able. While growth and cultivation has stemmed from death, the English language being founded on the dead, he argues that when death overwhelms, it does just this, stunts growth. He claims that “Evolution depends on genetic diversity. Increasing uniformity holds dangers for the long-term survival of [any] species” (Crystal 33).
Within the grounds of Green-wood lie victims of the attack on the World Trade Center. Lives, just like the children’s, that ceased sooner than anyone ever would have expected, this points to not only the dualistic nature of progress and destruction but the unavoidable interjection death can make in day to day life. A memorial was erected in the place they lost their lives. Described as “stunningly simple… a forest grove around two large voids marking where the towers once stood” (Cobb 54). The life of the forest surrounding the barren pockmarks death left behind. The initial design was rejected as it consisted of an empty, but stoic plaza. The judges “asked for trees to serve as symbols of renewal.” Renewal, from the classical Latin renovāre, meaning “to bring back” (OED). The idea of trees representing new life, is not a strange one, but given the details Cobb presents about the human manipulation and complete destruction of many forests and plant life in general, it portrays a paradox. To commemorate the dead, we attempt to bring life back in, to renovate their place of death.
Nehemiah Cleaveland encompasses and celebrates this paradox. Described by Cobb as a “Green-Wood enthusiast and original historian, sprung from the root of ‘to see’” (Cobb 25). This root of “historian” comes from Greek, and moves from idein “to see” to eidenai “to know.” “To see” is defined as “to perceive with the eyes.” This holds first, very real implications of subjectivity and seems to have little to do with fact, and more to do with perception. To perceive, from classical Latin percipere, per, commonly meaning “thoroughly” and capere, meaning “to take or to seize” (OED). Cleaveland, obsessed with Green-Wood, strived to perfect the natural landscape of the cemetery, pointing out the flaws he perceived and seeking to cut them out. Cobb gives evidence of Cleaveland’s progress, his journey from seeing to knowing, to taking, exactly what he wanted from Green-Wood.
Cleaveland’s uncle Moses set an example when he found Cuyahoga River, “a beautiful plain covered with luxuriant forest-growth” (Cobb 52). Moses saw, then knew, that it would be the perfect spot for a city. “The mapmaker who surveyed lots for sale spelled Cleaveland without its “a…” In one hundred years, most of the vast ocean of dark green forest that covered the state of Ohio… would be gone. A century after that, the Cuyahoga River, choked with pollution, would catch on fire” (Cobb 52). This is where the idea of trees, still symbolizing life and renewal falls further into question. Cleaveland with an “a” calls to attention the word “cleave” itself, meaning to cut or split an object (OED). Cleveland, if there was an “a” would be in essence, the land of deforestation. Moses Cleaveland cutting away, taking from the land, for is own means leads the reader to question the mass deforestation that took and is taking place in America. This points to trees being less valued for their life and more for what humanity can gain from their destruction; “The word ‘lumber’ itself means something useless, an obstacle. It first appeared as a term to describe timber cut for market in Massachusetts, 1662.” The description of lumber as “useless” is definitely an interesting one. Lumber is timber cleaved, chopped and sawn trees. Clearly the lumber itself is not useless, it is used to build things, to fuel things, but the trees may be the “obstacle.” The reader is forced to witness this dichotomy within a tree’s symbolic meaning.
Cobb expands on the strange paradox of how a tree is seen. She says, “The word “forest” itself forms a fence” (Cobb 39). “Forest” comes from medieval Latin, silvam, meaning “the ‘outside’ wood (i.e. that lying outside the walls… not fenced in)” (OED). Cobb takes the idea of how the physical forest is viewed, and juxtaposes it to how the letters forming the word “forest” appear. If forest means an unenclosed growth, humanity has created this new meaning, even in the creation of the word itself. Cobb now sees a sort of prison when she wants to see unencumbered, natural, freedom. This transformation is at the hands of human action. In an article from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, titled “Human Domination of Earth’s Ecosystems,” this aggressive transformation is touched on. “Until recently, the term ‘human-dominated ecosystems’ would have elicited images of agricultural fields, pastures, or urban landscapes; now it applies with greater or lesser force to all of Earth…” The article tracks the incredible rate of human alteration of the earth on an environmental scale. Cobb does this as well, but also tracks a reflection of this in the development of a word, how it came to be, then how its meaning and even its appearance has changed.
Cobb struggles with this ambiguous perception of trees and cannot seem to dispel a sense of being trapped from the word forming a fence and death being the cause of this entrapment. She tells a brief story of Vincent van Gogh imparting upon his brother some creative wisdom. He told his brother that the first step in painting a landscape is finding the essence of the trees and drawing them as if they were living beings. He says that only then will “the surroundings follow almost by themselves” (Cobb 60). A few years later van Gogh shoots himself in the heart, committing the final act of suicide. Cobb places these two, seemingly unrelated events back to back on the same page. The reader cannot avoid comparing van Gogh’s words on the significance of trees as living beings, to the brutality of the act of taking his own life. He places a huge value on life in this letter saying that the key is in the living trees and everything else will follow once you capture that life in your art. Van Gogh is well known for painting contrast. Take the famous sunflowers for instance, the stark contrast in their colors, but also the contrast in the life and death they simultaneously represent. There is the sense that there is no separation between these two ideas, that you cannot have one without the other. In this passage however, the reader sees Cobb’s struggle with the idea that she may not be able to separate life from death any longer. She may not be able to see a forest without also seeing humanity’s grim effects upon it. She may not be able to see a word without taking into account the death on which it is founded.
This dualism is directly representative of the Anthropocene itself. Mankind has dominated the earth and with this they have “cultivated” a space that satisfies their needs. Only with destruction can there be progress, and if the rate of progress becomes too rapid, the rate of destruction correlates directly. This positioning is reflected in how Cobb positions Green-wood. Green-wood is a cultivated space, just as the planet has become, thoroughly effected by humanity. The cemetery, referred to as a nursery, a space for nurtured growth, is also flooded with death, as the earth and its ability for growth has been stunted. Cobb walks through the Green-wood cemetery and is all too aware of this destruction in the name of progress and cultivation.
The first warm spring day orange warning signs line the walks: PESTICIDE SPRAYING KEEP OUT FOR 24 HOURS. The familiar chemical smell seeps into my nostrils. I change directions, but every turn reveals another guy with hose spewing yellow poison… “You shouldn’t be here when we’re spraying,” one calls out, kind of nice. “What about you,” I say back. He shrugs, the movie of himself. “It’s a paycheck.” So, another death (the word for it). But I’m turning away already. (67)
Cobb suddenly feels surrounded by pesticide, from classical Latin, -cīda, meaning killer, slayer. The word “slay” is defined as “to strike to death,” bearing connotations of a relentless quality, not ceasing until death is achieved (OED). Green-wood as described in this passage lacks the balance of life and death it claims to celebrate. Death has overwhelmed life, and Cobb searches for a path free from the pesticide, but she cannot find one. Herbicides are spraying chemicals that prevent weeds from growing. When they first arrived on the scene, they were viewed as only beneficial to the space, the appearance of the space, the life of the desired plants within the space, etc. Green-wood consists of five hundred acres, all of which were drenched in herbicides in 2006, one year after New York city officially banned the use of pendimethalin and 2, 4-D. Both of these chemicals used in Green-wood, the former poisoning fish and frogs, the latter was a “major component of Agent Orange, which the United States used to destroy the crops and jungles of Vietnam” (Cobb 68). In essence, Green-wood was using a chemical weapon, death, to keep the grounds growing in the desired way.
Using death to our advantage is a theme that has pervaded most areas of human interest. For centuries humankind has not been kind to other species. Over the past four centuries, the ability take advantage has simply become greater due to many technological and scientific advancements. In the name of progress, of self-indulgence, and profit, mankind has been destroying these “inferior species,” without thought of the possible consequences. This is an interesting superiority complex humanity is chronically inclined towards. This complex has lead to the devastating falls of entire empires. With the rise and fall of a culture comes the emergence and disappearance of their language. Crystal labels this idea as a constant in the equation of the human condition. What has changed is the rate at which these languages disappear due to the more powerful cultures at play. He points out some possible causes, “There has been a significant growth in the nation-state in the twentieth century, with an associated recognition of official languages; we know that there has been a significant growth in international and global lingua francas during the same period; and we can deduce that these developments will have put minority languages under increasing pressure” (Crystal 69). The growth of the “nation-state” is the growth of the great majority belonging to the same culture. Due to this growth of a very homogeneous majority, the idea of adopting a common language, lingua franca, becomes easier to accept. The people who tend to gravitate towards the idea of a “single world language,” are usually those that come from mostly monolingual nations (Crystal 27). The diverse minority becomes a nuisance like the weeds in the cemetery, needing to be removed. The idea behind this removal is a better mutual understanding between cultures, but the consequences of this would be the relatively rapid destruction of any cultural diversity. The majority would soon reign in superiority, and the minorities, the less powerful cultures would be loss.
Cobb brings up an interesting example of humanity’s, the majority’s, sense of superiority in the “Foreign Birds” section of Green-Wood. According to Cobb the plume industry is one that profited, most notably, the colonial Dutch and German New Guinea colonies. The exploitation and destruction of the land’s natural resources, was used to feed the industries “back home” (Cobb 79). While the geological resources, such as timber, copper, or oil, held very clear value, the plumage of peacocks were used as a symbol of fashion and status. Upon Marie Antoinette’s execution, this fashion trend took a nap, but was reinstated with the Restoration. Cobb quotes Walter Benjamin to define fashion saying that it “…couples the living body to the inorganic world.” For the living body to take another living body’s plumage, to simply decorate themselves, feels unnaturally sadistic. However, this draws an interesting comparison to the exploitation of forests and oil, things that are important to the continued survival of the environment itself. Death evolves into something decorative, something to be used, as a mere means to an end. Dead languages make up the foundation of not only English but Western civilization as well, in politics, philosophy, architecture, law, science, and mathematics (Life after Death). This however, is very different to the destruction of something, be it the environment or a culture, simply to achieve one’s own ends.
There is a fuzzy line society has placed, between what is worth protecting and what is not. While this could be based on scarcity and importance of each species to the environment, there can be a sense of confusion when one must compare a tree’s life to a language’s life or an animal’s or an insect’s. What does the general population see as living and what do they see as simply objects at their disposal? What they see becomes what they know. In the 1800s, arsenic was discovered to kill insects while preserving human corpses. Embalmers quickly began to take advantage of this chemical, preserving bodies in a way that could allow them to mimic life, while killing the beetles hungry for rotting flesh (Cobb 92). This sense of cultivated life and its inability to exist without death becomes even clearer with this literal mimicry of life not only performed upon a corpse but made possible with a killing agent.
Arsenic soon became a staple ingredient in household herbicides within the United States, while it was also being used as a catastrophic weapon by the US to destroy crops in the Mekong Delta. In 2009 worries arose about the at home use of arsenic-based pesticides resulting in the poisoning of the drinking water. This led to an agreement between the government and manufacturers to phase out the toxic arsenic-based pesticides. Mekong River was not so lucky. Throughout its 2,700 miles the River changes names several times, Cobb presents a list of these names: Water of Stone, Turbulent River, Mother River, the River of Nine Dragons. She says, “Dragon comes from the Greek verb “to see clearly.” But perhaps the literal sense is “the one with the (deadly) glance’” (Cobb 98) Here Cobb presents an interesting line of connection between the “deadly” gaze of the dragon and the sight of the river itself, and the people who look upon it. The river itself becomes a deadly beast, when traditionally they are viewed as a source of life. “Water,” from the Sanskrit udan, also meaning to breathe (OED). Nicholas Ostler in The Empires of the World, discusses Sanskrit, how it travelled by foot through India’s efforts to colonize the hinterlands and through trade. Sanskrit was an enormous early success under the reign of a culture’s economic progress, but quickly began to die. Ostler attributes this to an arrogance, an arrogance than can be seen also in the rash destruction of an entire river. Allison Cobb reflects on the consequences of this massive poisoning. The river with the “deadly gaze” connects so many lives (six nations), not only of the people who live near and rely upon the river, but environmentally speaking, the species that rely upon it for survival.
Paris is a vast ocean
the cypress in Vietnam no scientist knew existed that sprouts out
of ancient corals its nearest relation the American nootka spruce
proof the land once connected in a single ocean that flooded
leaving 200-million-year-old-sediments-along-the-banks-of-
the-Mekong-with-its-many-names-which-stitches-six-
nations-but-no-one-completed-the-trip-from-mouth-to-
source-until-the-last-century-and-scientistsstilldisagreeaboutwhereexactlyit
springsfromtheearth.
Science from the root “to cut.” (Cobb 104)
She points out the scientific involvement, by finding the root of the word, translating the noun, the field of science into a cold verb, “to cut.” From the Latin word, scīre, “science” means “to know,” intransitively defined as “to discover” or “display.” The word “dissect” is defined as “to cut up for the purpose of displaying…” following loosely this line of inquiry, leading to an action dissociated with beneficial knowledge and progress and associated with pain, and a methodical destruction (OED). While it seems two different meanings have come from one word, instead Allison simply exposes an addendum not usually considered. Throughout the book the use of these dead language roots, proves time and time again that language is dualistic in nature. With only the word “science” the reader is yet again ushered into a world in which progress is exposed as destruction. Where a study of the natural world, of life, is founded on death. Many words that the reader might initially take at face value, Cobb turns on their heads. She investigates all the implications that one word may have, even when the root of the word seems to oppose what is viewed as the definition.
A self-reflexive example of this duality and opposition is produced on the fifth page of the book in which Cobb not only questions the meaning of a word, but the meaning of the word questions the meanings of everything: “Fact means not “true” but “to make.” The fact of art a trace.” The common understanding of the word fact implies a concrete quality, a truth of the matter, something that cannot be disputed, something that is proven. Historically however, the connotations of the word put a lot of weight on the speaker of the fact. “Fact” is defined as “the act or process of making, doing, or performing something” (OED). This leaves the word “fact” less concentrated in any concrete, evidentiary reality and more focused on the speaker them self. The meaning behind the word becomes extremely important right off the bat. The reader not only questions the meaning of “fact” but if it is a “trace” it is only something to follow. From French it is only a footprint left by someone else’s foot (OED).
The idea of fact being but a trace denotes a certain ephemeral quality. Cobb dwells on this unattainable quality and naturally, being in a cemetery, investigates the word “ghost.”
GHOST: The sense of the pre-Teutonic *ghoizdo-z should be “fury, anger…” the root *gheis appears with cognate sense in Old Norse geisa to rage, Gothis usgaisian to terrify (see gast v.); outside Teutonic the derivatives seem to point to a primary sense “to wound, tear, pull to pieces,” (Cobb 65).
The presence of cutting, dividing, wounding, and destroying, throughout the text is extremely apparent, but still pops up in unexpected places. Ghost means commonly a spirit or soul of a person, but can also mean “breath.” The origins she pulls from all relate to emotions, none of them are very pleasant. Interestingly, it would conform with pop-culture, in that ghosts are commonly considered spirits with unfinished business, some negative emotion is holding them back from moving to the great beyond. The most shocking angle she takes is “to wound, tear, pull to pieces.” In certain ways it could relate to this “feeling” this emotion, rage, fury, having very real expressions and consequences, even while the emotion itself is intangible. Cobb draws a connection between this strange paradox in fact, its intangibility and uncertainty, to the same intangibility of “ghost.”
… I failed
to keep faith with facts. I just wanted them (to
splinter) to give up
their ghosts (that’s rage, to tear apart). Truth
from the root “tree,” think solid as an oak… (Cobb 104)
Seemingly finding it difficult to whittle down the facts and find something positively concrete beneath their surface, Cobb finds their ghosts. She reminds you of the subjectivity, the intangibility of both of these meanings. She abandons her faith in fact and searches instead for truth. Instead of following the footprint she turns to follow the foot leaving it. The origin of “truth” lies in the trees. Poetically hearkening back to the mass destruction of trees, the metaphor leads the viewer to view truth as a rarity and its different species at risk of extinction. She pushes van Gogh’s theory of trees being “living beings,” and therefore truth is, in this world a living thing, commonly exploited and in need of protection. Green-Wood becomes about not just trees, a cemetery, or language, but about truth, something all encompassing.
Cobb pulls similar strings to connect the ideas of creating life and destroying it. Focusing on her journey to insemination she says, “The word “pregnant” was taboo in written English until the sixteenth century. Euphemisms include “poisoned” (in reference to the swelling)” (Cobb 67). This time instead of diving into the root of the word “pregnant” she looks at a euphemism used to describe pregnancy. This euphemism is “poisoned” a word that can only really imply death and sickness. Pregnancy, something that at its core means full of something, and in practical reality, full of life. To give birth is to give life, while to poison is to take away life, to deplete it. She refers back to this abrasive dichotomy in the final pages of her book.
But breath
itself took over. Breathed me everyone
else’s air like it might disappear. Breathed
like any animal panic
of oxygen-swelled blood and all it’s pregnant with (see
“poisoned” in reference to) quick
and warm like anyone breathed. (Cobb 103)
Breath was traditionally considered the source of life, especially biblically. From Genesis 2:7, “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” This harkens back to the poisonous “River of Nine Dragons,” a source of life becoming an arbiter of death. Cobb uses the word “breath” pressed against her sucking it up in panic, and adjacent as well to the comparison previously drawn from the pregnancy and poison. Cobb uses these double meanings, or possibly their “truer” meanings to describe a certain desperation, one for truth, and one for life. Through this dichotomy she not only points to a clear message, but further expounds upon the intricacy of life’s and death’s entanglement. Poison reflects pregnancy, as breath reflects lack of breath in her panic and desperation.
Cobb dives further into this “pregnant” and “poison” comparison in her description of the word “fallopian.” She says, “The word “fallopian” comes from the student of Vesalius who first examined the organs inside the body of an anonymous cadaver… He never determined the tubes’ purpose. He called them the trumpets of the uterus” (Cobb 74). This section spoke about dissection and new anatomical progress at the time. In order to study life, one must study the dead, referring back to “Science from the root ‘to cut’” (104). The study of one of the most significant aspects of female reproduction, points to the fact that not only is the student attempting to study life, but the creation of life itself, within a corpse. Cobb goes onto describe the insertion of a dye into her reproductive system, used to map everything out. But the doctor says he doesn’t need the x-rays of her fallopian tubes.
In the absolute dark of my pelvis, the liquid curls like two ghost question marks.
I was always dead, weren’t you?” (Cobb 82).
Ghost, to mean rage, fury, an intangible emotion, one that tears apart and wounds. The death and life seem to become one, within her, curling through her pelvis. Possibly the ultimate representation of this muddled space lies within this scene. “I was always dead, weren’t you?” A hard line to read. The format of a question oozes vulnerability and grief. To be always dead is to never have life. “Dead” is defined as “*Said of things that have been alive. That has ceased to live; deprived of life” (OED). Death without life is illogical, but death as a deprivation of life is Cobb’s focus here.
Humanity has been changing the world at rapid rate. The idea of death meaning a deprivation of life implies a certain lack of purpose. Death only has meaning in life, so in an ideal world there would be a sense of balance between the two. This balance, however, no longer exists and the excessive amount of death, on a cultural and environmental scale, can only become detrimental. On an evolutionary scale, if some characteristic does not promote survival it is corrected through the generations. Life and diversity become the results of evolution, but humanity’s death toll, is rising faster than species can adapt due to the environment we have created. Crystal insists that “evolution depends on genetic diversity” (Crystal 33). Death is becoming overwhelming, culturally and environmentally, the only thing that is concrete, leaving life nothing but a trace.
Not only do we see how man has effected the apparent environment in which they rule but the damage that has been done is not always so visible. The death of languages, is akin to the increasing loss of biological species on the planet. This comparison between language death and species death is brought into focus through this text. Through Cobb’s consistent references to the dead languages from which English is founded upon, she discusses environmental irresponsibility. This discussion leads her into a world in which she fails to see any spaces that are not stained by death. Within these spaces however lie traces of life, and she expounds on what this dichotomy truly means for the individual. This is represented by her presentation of the plurality of meanings and implications behind the words she chooses. This plurality within a word and its root is usually so closely linked while also being almost the exact opposite of the common understanding, leading to very ambiguous and yet pointed notions. She invites the reader to participate in this communicative and investigative process, insuring their active participation and in turn general awareness of not only the text, but what the text means for everyday life and larger notions as well. These larger notions focus on the “truth of the matter” instead of fact.
Throughout her struggle to appreciate the living and find the truth, the presence of death becomes overbearing. Cobb’s investigation forces the reader to acknowledge the importance of live and the prevalence of excessive death. This is an investigation of the intangible and physical, the life and death, and the progress and destruction. Within these seemingly inseparable dualisms she brings a sort of consciousness, as she recognizes how humanity’s ignorance and its consequences is effecting every aspect of her life. Gazing around the cemetery it is inescapable. Researching the origins and roots of her language, it is inescapable.
Death and extinction are very present and thriving and throughout Green-Wood this fact becomes unavoidable. Cobb’s journey is one with a purpose. She’s looking for something concrete to hold onto, maybe some unstained symbol of life, maybe some unmade truth, and while maybe she did not find it, she did achieve a sort of resolution at the end.
But not futile, not
infertile as Emerson thought just a stirring
in the mud. That’s the edge, living and dead
that gives birth, duh, to everything. The scream
grew into ocean the air a thing I could breathe through
that breathed through me. (page 105)
The journey Cobb takes through these pages, follows many different paths, all seemingly leading back to this hot bed, the edge. “Living and dead/ that gives birth, duh, to everything,” a comment made on the second to last page. Everything is born from death and lives in death, therefore everything is born from the living and dead. While in its essence might be a simple concept, it is one that may be difficult to really understand, especially when so much death feels cruel, wasteful and ignorant. While this death, whether it be of language or biological species, is necessary, and from it springs new life, the amount of destruction and cruelty should not go accepted but challenged and questioned. Cobb’s journeys, all of them, are not futile, they are not infertile. She wades through made facts to find her truth, leading the reader into a state of consciousness that can recognize these difficult non-dualistic dualities and analyze them, their consequences, and if they are, in fact, inescapable.
Sources
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