‘Smith, Tom, “Do Bear Bells Really Work?” Backpacker: 18 Aug. ao1o, Web. 21 AUg. 201. Stam, Robert. “Beyond Fidelity: The Dialogics of Adaptation” Film Adaptation. Ed, James Naremore. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2000.54-76. Print. Literature through Film. Malden: Blackwell, 2005, Print. ive Pleasures: Bakhtin, Cultural Criticism, and Film, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins CHAPTER § 154. New York: Ballantine, 1965, Print. 3» Translation, Critique” Journal of Visual Culture 6. APTATION AND FIDELITY ‘i ‘Changes Everything: Theory and Practice. Independence: Routledge, 2012, Proguest. Web. 22 May 2015, The Translator’ Invisibility. and ed, New York: Routledge, 2008. Print. ‘West Side Story. Dit, Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. Music by Leonard Bernstein, Lyrics im. Based on a book by Arthur Laurents, Perf, Natalle Wood, George Artists, 1961, Film, DAVID T. JOHNSON (on the most important concept in the brief history of adaptation fidelity, a word that has been almost impossible to displace from our simply fidelity refers to the extent to which a given aesthetic object—tra- ptation studies, a film—reflects a faithful understanding of its source— text, especially a novel, play, or short story. That this small idea such vitriol over the years may surprise the scholar new to the study of larly since the most common reaction to any film based on a source he viewer is familiar is to compare both experiences precisely along these he explicit rejection of this impulse has so often characterized adaptation gach to the concept that the critical move guiding almost any recent study thas been, at some point in the opening, to distance ones current work ‘of the past—specifically, that of fidelity (or what has commonly as fidelity studies), The sources ofthis scholarly anxiety can be difficult to n for someone familiar with the history ofthe field. This essay seeks to give nse of how the concept has been discussed in the past to explain why ithas bby noting the centrality o bea perfect example of fi however, they are argu that they hope “will contribute to the ongoing theoretical debate and value of comparing film adaptations to their sources while also taking into a of relevant textual and contextual issues” (9) Thus, even those sympa- hfidelitys aims, at least in more recent years, end up presenting something more and nuanced in practice. similarly straightforward and recent call fr idelity’sOO i: return can be found in Colin MacCabe, Kathleen Murray, and Rick Warners volume True to the 5; Adaptation and the Question of Fidelity. tn his introduction, MacCabe asserts, “This volume goes against the academic grain in that it considers the question of ‘truth to the spirit’ to capture something important but, further, it also implicitly raises questions of value that are routinely dismissed by adaptation studies" (8). Again. MacCabp and his fellow writers suggest that we should return to fidelity but what they demonstrat, by way ofthis eturn, is something far more complex than the position implied by the typi- cal fidelity critique. Neither Kranz and Mellerski nor MacCabe etal. are rejecting fidelity, ashas become the standard response for adaptation scholars, but they are not practicing fielityin away thatthe standard response would immediately recognize. often has a reactive ring to it, an insistence predecessors, when it is never quite cle "were getting it wrong, Deborah Cartmell and Imelda Whel ‘opening of Screen Adaptation: Impure Cinema when they there has been a tendency among scholars of screen adapt the field as some kind of corrective to what a thoughtful recent evaluation of some of Bluestone’ central tenets, ler, at the headwater of so much that follows, Bluestone rejects an idea hat for many of these ? on the film, he is striking off atypically ‘of the “mutational process” (5), which he ses a inevitab ‘to tease out the ways the two media represent narrative. Yet Sartre himself had no inter ‘est in making the case for fidelity studies. The passage in question comes from a longe® discussion in which Sartre is arguing that even with the greater publicity brought 8 bby movie adaptations, a literary author cannot expect to have a greater reading publi ‘much less a greater influence over that public, since readers who come to the novel afet seeing the film, Sartre believes, will read the novel in a more facile way. Drawing on the ‘example of Jean Delannoy’s La symphonie pastorale (1946). based on a novel by Andté Gide and starring Michele Morgan, Sartre reflects, “The name of Gide recently entered heads by invasion, but {am sure that itis curiously married there with the bea ‘iful face of Michele Morgan. Itis true that the film has caused a few thousand copies of ork to be sold, but in the eyes ofits new readers the latter appears as a more or less Jleommentary on the former” (245, emphasis mine). Sartre is bemoaning the state literary author’ potential readership and influence in the mid-twentieth century, any grand claims about adaptation studies—and certainly making no claims hole. Unfortunately, however, our discussion of fidelity must begin here, wi 3.0, withthe best of intentions, misinterpreted a famous postwar philosopher. een trying to recover ever since. it did not represent ts own perhaps nt 0 many problems for the field as the second aspect of fidelity—the n, oF any aesthetic object, period. terests of the dominant hegemony. Replacing that der has elsewhere called “the rise of the nonjudgmentals” (40): a movement td scholarship that would study aspects of culture that did not rely upon judging of the object. Historicization in particular became a useful discourse in this 3b was not so much to judge the object as to study it and xt within which it might be understood. ct both impulses at once, and this he did. He begins by “At every level from newspaper reviews to longer ical anthologies and journals, the adducing of fidelity to the original novel ctiterion for judging the film adaptation is pervasive" (8). Here McFarlane’s ames a reader so familiar with such work that examples are unnecessary—and, Hf assages will reveal, a reader likely to share Fs sense of exasperation state. In fact, ifBluestone's bookiis the wellspring of our field more generally, we redit McFarlane not just with popularizing the critical move to reject fi _the outset ofa work, but equally with accompanying that movebyexpressing @ fee “Aligning Adaptation Studies with Translation Studies? Chapter 28 in this immense frustration, a sense that the critics at his or her wits end with the concept and Buthe also notes how McFarlane’s book circles back, inevitably, to fidelity, ‘and that the rejection is years overdue. We find an analogous derision, ifnot exact 0, because the major purpose of his book is to demonstrate how the ‘car- peration, overa decade e €s that had first appeared four years earlier, fe that, the scholar must engage in some form of comparative analysis—and Christopher Ors, reviewing Narrative Strategies along with three other titles, expresses his highly influential volume, itude in a book review cited by McFarlane himself: “Given the problematic discourse of fidelity, one is tempted to call for a moratori ‘McFarlane’ sentiments match Andrew's and Orr's—: . “Discussion of adaptation has been folds—and likely to the surprise of @ contemporary reader—fid ism depends ‘but important ways. Robert Stam, for instance, frequently cite ‘on a notion of the text as having and rendering up to the (intelligent) reader a single, correct ‘meaning’ which the filmmaker has either adhered to or in some sense violated, or tampered with” (9)—the scholar’s frustration evident in the parentheses surround. 5), a phrasing that does not imply a full-scale rejection so much as an openness to hodologies in addition to fidelity. The end of his essay calls for the field “to be the “distinction” in fidelity criticism “between being faithful to the ‘letter! an approach dd with inchoate notions of ‘idelity’” (75~-76)—less concerned, not uncon- ‘hich the more sophisticated writer may suggests no way to ensure a ‘successful adape tation, and to the spirit or ‘essence’ of the work” (0). This sprit-based model for fel ive. Jonathan Rosenbaum calls the film Housekeeping a ity investigation does indeed drive much of the critical work that precedes and follows g, faithful film adaptation” (206), even if his essay is not straightforward fidel- ielding either rich or poor returns, depending on the ‘sand the read= Likewise, Lesley Stern begins her study on the Emma adaptation Clueless receptiveness to fidelity. My conceding some value to spirit-based fidelity ing tha “there is something uncanny in the way Cher reprises the role that criticism should not be confused with McFarlane’s own attitude, however, since he is Yoodhouse vacated in 1816" (221), an observation that invites engagement along explicitly and wholly negative, concl something more complex at work. fidelity approach seems a doomed enterprise and fidelity criticism . npsest metaphor has become a common one in humanities study, and its ‘That McFarlane’ book would go on to be cited so often over ;pethaps led to acertain imprecision with regard to the vehicle of the figure. forbeing too closeto fidelity however much agiven scholar distances his or her work from: it becomes common for the to emphasize the relative proximity of the previous work to fidelity stud- sis because the ttt ostile to faded language of fdel is my insistence that we be accurate about the correct mea nat enough etl taphorical use afterall, than its own appeal to fidel fidelity’saims. For if we can never quite identify exactly what we mean by fide always gesturing toward some impulse we cannot describe with certainty, how are We to be sure that we ourselves are not practicing it? This is what James Naremore’s intro tice of fidelity studies, for as the opening of this essay suggests, clear endorse- duction to the collection Fim Adaptation, published four years later, would assert about ‘the approach are remarkably rare, both now and in the past. And, going fur- in line with Bluestone’sown “adaptation stone was not practicing fidelity studies, and if Andrew and Ort were already 4s movement through an emphasis 02 [Naremore, Stam, in partor in full, along with (For @ fuller consideration of this adaptation metaphor, see Laurence later (and notwithstanding more recent attempts at a recovery), oathe true practice of fidelity studies is so difficult to identify is because nal history. Since scholars practicing fidelity studies were often at teaching in their work was more widely diffused, among multiple voices, rather than few key practitioners around whose work other writers might have ral arguments about how fidelity h le tothe crtie’s preferred methodol. ism never existed, since surely ithas importance as acritical target functioned, more often than ogy. Although she does not and continues to do so, she underscores its far gr In reading over several decades of adaptation criticism, the suspicion grows that, fjecton thachus, by while fidelity models may remain prevalent in film and television reviewing, in Fe ishedscholers (ond, broader journalistic discourse, and in everyday evaluations by the film-going public, : in academic circles the ritual saying of fdelty criticism atthe outset ofa work has cossifed into a habitual gesture, devoid of any real intellectual challenge, if no one in academe is actually advocating the antiquated notion of fide is there to overturn? It appears more likely that the standardized routing criticism has come to function as a smokescreen, lending the guise of method cal and theoretical innovation to studies that routinely reproduce the set model of comparative textual analysis (6) shere I now work and a publication I co-edited from 2005 to 2016) rsal sof course relative, for even ifthe discourse was at times centered i sare used today, readers were less likely to peruse ana While Murray is making this pointin order to advocate for new directions in adaptation. that dealt specifically with their own research interests, meaning that fidelity studies—specifically, studying the adaptation industry—I want to seize on her passing be a robust or meager discourse, depending upon the individual reader. reference to those places where “fidelity models may remain prevalent; since they may of Literature/Film Quarterly, readers could find fidelity as a part ofa larger shed some light on how academics have engaged with fidelity over the development of, ests, whether directly engaged with or indirectly alluded to among a larger the field. ive mode of writing that could be playful, sensuous, and expressive. Kenneth ‘To consider where and how fidelity discourse has existed, we mi thiells review-essay of Roman Polanski’ 1971 adaptation of Macbeth published the history of adaptation studies, much of wi i -volume of the journal in 1973 provides a good example ofthe journal’ early ‘Thomas Leitchs marvelous history of the Literature/Film Association, “Where Are We J Rothwvells opening paragraph remarks, for instance, “As though cocksure of Going, Where Have We Been?” as well as Robert Ray's essay on the field cited earlier, granted him to indulge in Senecan horrors (afterall did not the Elizabethans eir strange tastes?) Polanski fils up the technicolor screen with a banquet of cru- ‘Mos film reviews in standard journalism would eschew references to Seneca Elizabethan drama with which the average lay reader would ig the essay's address to scholarly readers. Yet Rothwell is from a more informal, essayistic mocle of address associated with journal- mic tone of “cocksure” the rhetorical question about Elizabethan taste, the as about society” (328), Because *banqus literary studies, under the | ‘of cinema-stucies schol recalls William Hazlitt’ immersive essay “The Fight’ —"“Ihe young people Yo meansall dul groundlings [hasten to add, nevertheless 1 \dother adapt andisnot journalistic; itis and is not scholarly there isa whole range of writing because their interests did not jibe with the current interests ofthe fields. One reason afidelity criticism is often more nuanced and complex in practice, those who wrote with this set of concerns in mind tended to do s0 with a blend of scholarly and journalistic interests, with the advantage that fidelity could enter the discussion with relatively ttle resistance from theoretical vocabularies found solely within scholarship and ultimately th fidelity’svalues—the very vocabularies quickly becoming entrenched, Contrary to pre leas about where fidelity discourse thrives, it would be unfair to writers who identify with journalism to suggest that they are primarily responsible for keeping that discourse alive. Although reviewers often acknowledge a source and speak of fidelity—-even, at times to agreat degree—they are not exclusively interested in the interchange between sources and adaptations, and to the extent that their writing is evaluative (and it is that), such appraisals less often based on fidelity than on the quality df the film as the reviewer sees it. Otis Ferguson, reviewing Of Human Bondage in 1934, acknowledges the source text, ina very traditional fdelity-studies mode, as being“ finer thing’ than the film, but only o that he can recommend that the viewer forget the source and enjoy “a very fine thing in its own tight” (42). Surely, Ferguson comparison here, where he contextualizes an adaptation in light of its source and only then acknowledges its worth, would seem to bear out the common complaint that Murray and others have ‘made about journalistic inquiries into fidelity. Nonetheless, his phrase “a very fine thing, {nits ovin right” indicates where the journalist typically lands (or its opposite, in the case ‘ofa negative review)—that is, on an assessment of the film as an experience in and of itself, even if fidelity comes to bear on that assessment. In a much more recent example, reviewing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 201, Manohla Dargis acknow!- edges the importance of fidelity but, like Ferguson, is much more at pains to make the cease for the beauty—even the art—of the film, one she regards through the prism of nos- ‘algia, both for the actors who have aged and also for the aging of cinema itself, her sent the death of cinema” arguments in the ai atthe beginning of ‘mately observed charactersand the i Dargis speaks to fidelity but not exclusi expect to find, if journalism were the mode: all these years. For her as much as for Ferguson, fidelity isnot the sole issue and often drops away ‘entirely from the reviewer's immediate concems, Other examples might qualify my characterization, but I would argue that the overall contribution journalism has made to keeping fidelity alive has been much smaller than has alwaysbeen imagined, Fidelity thus ‘may have entered our field through an evaluative and essayistic mode associated in patt “with journalism, but journalists do not regularly practice fidelity evaluation, norcan they beheld responsible or the file's inability to reject i fully ‘Andiso fidelity began within adaptation studies as literary studies and cinema stud- ies were gravitating toward theoretical models that scholars of adaptation were not jnterested in pursuing, It grew instead within the Work of scholars dispersed in various might ————————————— ons and smaller publications, and when scholars from literary studies and cin- is respectively, did weigh in on what adaptation studies was up to, it was +o say that adaptation scholars were not practicing good scholarship, given ‘embodied all of those older ways of working that humanities scholars were gin amuch broader way. And after atime, adaptation scholars began to realize ‘aken seriously, they too would have to abandon these impulses. For scholars sm teaching institutions who wanted to join their aspirational peers, reject- lity became an act of camaraderie whereby lesser known voices could join those “more well established. It also became a real moment of advocacy forthe field, jaiming and reconfirming intellectual worth within a discipline that con for recognition. Thi be a disingenuous gesture, jan one, when a scholar enacts yet another rejection of fidelity, but an ear- -mergent field, Unfortunat om our language in foto. A tre re lars simply neglect to address it at al. realllooking elsewhere, have forgotten what was there in the fir tion and anxiety had been about, all of those years, for those of us who once tt, that aged concept, that museum piece—that word, in letter or spirit, that en be hard. pressed even to remember. laying” as Murray put well, Rather than join th simplicity for ineffectiveness, since the first two approaches may offer us ugh, and rich intellectual engagement with adaptation. These two paths the tro twenty-first-century critical defenses ofthe concept mentioned ear- lity: Essays on Film Adaptation (2008), edited by David 1. Kranz and Nancy kiand True tothe Spirit: Film Adaptation and the Question of Fidelity (2ou), >¥ Coli MacCabe, Kathleen Murray, and Rick Warner. In the first case, I want ‘on Kranz’ approach to fidelity elaborated upon in his contribution to The mt Reader: Issues of Adaptations in the second, I will focus on MacCabe’s ion, as well as Kathleen Murray's contribution. Kranz proposes to emphasizethe comparative impulse over the evaluative ones MacCabe and Murray propose the ‘opposite Truly separating them, or giving one primacy without any residue of the other, {s probably impossible. Still, these two solutions, to which Iwill add a third, may yet cul- tivate good scholarship devoted to the st In “Trying Harder: Probability, Obje ‘Kranz asserts that "theres no necessary or inherent reason why fidelity criticism include an evaluation of the relative quality of an adaptation with respect to its source” adding, in a sentiment that alludes to the journalistic history outlined earlier, “Why evaluate a all? We're not reviewers” (85). Kranz is quite expansive in the way he envi- sions this comparative approach; for him, contra the sense of one-to-one models with which fidelity studies is often associated, “{clomparative criticism of adaptations should include analysis of cinematic, intertextual, and contextual elements relevant to inter- pretive arguments emerging from analyses of narrative and other traditionally favored data” (86). He also makes clear the sense that comparative approaches, when divorced from evaluative counterparts, might be mobilized through any number of theoretical frameworks, even and especially those that would reject the evaluative impulse. The only problem with the comparative approach, as Kranz outlines i, is his distrust ofthe theo- retical traditions that he locates within postmodernism, those which, he admits, can be ‘mobilized by the comparative/fdelity approach, bi whose “relativistic excesses” (88), he argues strongly, should be curtailed or “Slter{ed] out” (88). This is the point at which I would depart from Kranz, since ostensibly, once one takes the comparative! inue to yield rich results in the right hands, might be found in True to the Spirit, where Colin MacCabe and other writers make clear their desire to foreground the possibilities of evaluative, -based adaptation scholarship. Although the essays often take distinct approaches source and adaptation having value on th a system—an important word for this. 4s well. (André Bazin’s work on adaptation, which posits something similar, i an explicit touchstone for the collection.) There is thus a model of active circulation at work here, a8 ‘well asa sense of a more synchronic, less diachronic way of evaluating adaptation, ome explained particularly well in Kathleen Murray’ reading of To Have and Have Not vari- ‘ous incarnations. She reflects that what we need to study adaptation is “a more flexible ell ae Have and Have Not] needs to be thought of as a Warners picture, a Hawks ‘Hemingway adaptation, a Faulkner sereenplay, @ response to Casablant Bacall vehicle simultaneously” ( of this approach is that it destabilizes the causality apparently impl succession while taking a broader, more system-oriented approach to history, cone, east ofall MacCebe, assumes that the terms of evalu stable. He is quick to p latory system rather than an apparently rely there are advantages to returning at i node of engagement that, as MacCabe asserts, < nota take part in, given the importance of other kinds of scholarly inquiry in luation is not necessary, Still, the idea of entering an “adaptive system” evalu- locating both individual and combined worth within those varying forms that the re might usefully destabilize, and finding a surplus value, not a diminished one, cess isa second future for fidelity, which, like Kranz’ proposal, is ‘of scholarly engagement in the years ahead, third, admittedly speculative, possibility for fdelity’s future may that hinges on a mistranslation. In his contribution to the co ostivar Theory and lis Afterlife, Philip Rosen points out that one ofthe key terms ‘writings, in French, is croyance, which Hugh Gray translates as “faith” in the ary Volumes in which most English-speaking readers have encountered Bazin over. ars. Yet as Rosen explains, this is not exactly the French meaning of the word, Eh he suggests might be better understood as “belief” ~a word that offersan advan. ems connotatively easier tot ward a religious “belief” even if it “can apply to religious commitment” also “can istemological generality and less subjective valance” (107). Rendering “ allows Rosen to move laterally among Bazin writing, suggesting connection between Bazin’s explorations of reality and cinema and adaptation and cinema, and his provocative essay surely h for Bazin scholars. 1 wonder if we might draw upon it in adaptation specially infidelity studies. If we appropriated Rosen's new translation for our poses, what would it mean for an adaptation to evince beligfin a source, rather ‘What would it mean, in other words, to practice belief studies? Among other Hts as adaptations is to (make thetr audiences) recall the adapted work, or the cultural Of t” (Grant 57; gtd. in Geraghty 3). Studying fidelity—or belief—in this way98 _ SOUNDATIONS OF ADAPTATION STUDY sight provide a new dimension to the study of adaptation, but would do so through a concept we thought we had exhausted, But we might be even more expansive, For if part of the larger project of the humanities has been, and continues to be to become conscious of, and critical of, one’s own beliefs, and where those from, and where they are likely to lead, and in what ways they may be static or capable of change-and how one’ own beliefs meet the beliefs of others, and what happens when they do, and what the implication for that are onthe political, economic, and socal realities we inhabit and those we want to envision—then adaptation studies and belief ‘hudies might be particularly well poised to provide some guidance to these larger, com- plicated, always unfolding questions. ‘Whether or not belief studies becomes part of our discourse, however these three pos- es at least point toward ways that fidelity might continue to inform what we do But let us take the many, many rejections at face value and assume that the field, as a ‘whole, does not want to continue practicing fidelity studies. Given that, we are faced swith areal dilemma. For ifidelity studies i to be rejected, but four discourse inevitably retains the residue of fidelity, a concept that is anathema to its very identity then what is tobecome ofthe field? “We might do well here to take comfort in that most comforting of genres, the gradu- ation speech. In 2035, film and television director Joss Whedon, coming off two sue- ‘cessful, albeit very different, adaptations—the blockbuster The Avengers and the more modestly budgeted Much Ado about Nothing—gave the commencement address to the ss of his alma mater, Wesleyan University. Whedon acknowledged the és that plague most graduation speeches when he opened with, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and ... no, Fm not that lazy” One could hardly imagine a less inspired beginning than going to Frost’s poem, and the joke might have been enough, ‘on its own, before Whedon proceeded into the “real” speech. But Whedon, an expert con genre in his own right, recovered the cliché, for the duration of his speech, and (as ‘my poetry colleagues would be quick to note) gave a more accurate reading ofthe poem than the popular interpretation ofits celebration of eelf-fashioning in contrast to a more conventional mode of living. Whedon reflected that, no matter what road the students ‘took, the “other road” would not just always look better, or at least u appeal- ing, but would always be with them in some fundamental way, ‘This a8 ‘Whedon explained to the graduates, part of one’ identity formation, “something that you are constantly earning. Its no other voice?” ‘We might use Whedor’s musings on Frost’ famous poem to speculate on our own future as afield, Because whether or not we practice fidelity studies in that future—and ‘most of usin al probability, will not—itislikely toremain part of what we do, informing, @ David L, and Nancy C. Melerskt, eds. Jn/ aa ere an “other voice?’ to adopt Whedo: nce again, delay that impulse, and let it speak? What would tion to older questions that we thought we had jon in ways we never have? Theory Today” M/C Journal 10.2 (2007), ‘New York Times July 2011. Web. June 2014. ition, Film Adaptation, and the Case of Mi Def Literature! Film Quarterly 43.4 (2015) 246-62, P milla. “Theorizing Adaptations/Adapting Theories” Adaptation Studies: New ies, New Directions. Ed. Jorgen Brulbn, Anne Gjelsvik, and Eiik Frisvold Hanssen, Bloomsbury 2013 19-45. Print. (Otis. The Film Criticism of Otis Fs ality in Adaptation Velsh and Lev 77-102, Print. ae Buys on Fl Adapitin es ‘Cambridge Scholars P, 2008. Print. mie oma “Where Arc We Gang, Where Have Webcast” Web nd Le 3 Pr th, Dir, Roman Polanski. Perf. Jon Finch, Francesca Annis. Columbia, ea iim i Clin Kalen Mure, nd Rick Warr eds: Trv fo he Spis Pm Adaptation 10 the Theory of Adaptation. Oxford:CHAPTER 6 Adaptation. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2000. Print. Oftiuman Bondge Diz fbn Crore Pe ADAPTATION IN THEORY : AND PRACTICE Mending the Imaginary Fence 75. Print. Paul. What Is Literature? Trans. Bernard Frechtman. New York: Philosophical MARY H. SNYDER Naremore 221-38, 1s M,, and Peter Lev, eds. The Literature/Film Reader: Isues of Adaptation ecrOw, 2007 Print. ‘ ‘Whedon, joss. “Joss Whedon ’87—2013 Wesleyan University Commencement Speech— Official” ‘Online videoclip. YouTube, 28 May 2013. Web.13 an. 2014. [was in graduate school, my friend Kim and [learned of workshop at el ‘our poems critiqued by a panel of academic critics. Kim said t naspired to be respected for her work. She aimed for critical teedbuc fr d and critique. I sighed my ing n front of me as the copies of my pti imple beauty. t was a short poem abc ad lost their baby girl a short time before Christmas, On Christmas D ‘professors attacked Kimis poem in what tet, since they knew more about poetry thi sand experienced or not, I refused to stay silent. They said that because place at Christmas time, a pink rocking horse ornament didn't make horse would be more symbolic, signifying a boy and the birth of C ressed consternation that the poem depicted a suicide at Christmas, whi 2 joyful time of year. by their responses, I was reluctant to voice my horror at their ignorance, ‘up. I tried to keep my emotions controlled, Having worked with victim: new thatthe suicide rate at Christmas time spiked to one of the highest oft When I explained that to the professors, they were dismissive, and I suppressed i