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Pathetic Fallacy

Posted on October 15, 2019October 16, 2022 by David Barker
Tree Stump in Bob Lake, ON, August 2019
Tree Stump in Bob Lake, ON, August 2019

Pathetic Fallacy. A fog-bound morning.

One could easily accuse the outlying fog of spying on my inner state, or worse, of manufacturing it by drifting into my ears and eyes and nostrils and gaping mouth, and supplanting my accustomed mental chaos with a vague stillness. I wander into the shallows and stare at the stump. The early fog has performed a trick on it. By blotting out all but the hint of the far shoreline, and by enlisting the help of the water’s reflective surface, the fog has drawn the stump into isolation. That is the pathetic fallacy, not a feeling of vagueness or an ill-defined hold on reality, but an illusion of discreteness.

John Donne declared that “No man is an island.” One would expect Donne, as a man of the Renaissance, to stand as a prophet, presaging modernity’s onslaught. Instead, he stands as a nice old man clueless as to the cultural drift of his age. He failed to foresee Rights of Man, individual responsibility, the confessional diary, the democratic franchise, celebrity culture, the American dream, consumer advocacy, the personal brand.

This isolation stripped of context—where you can’t see the forest for the stump—produces a clean crisp decisive image. This is precisely the image I yearn to project for my personhood. But John Donne’s wisdom whispers in my ear and I know he was right. Though striking, my image is plastic. The stump is dead. Inevitably, the sun will rise on the scene and burn away the illusion.

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