Idealism and Nihilism

Nihilism and Idealism in "Our Lady of the Peace" For any person of any ethnicity who verbalizes even a vague threat of suicide over a recalcitrant vending machine bag of greasy Fritos - and compares her plight with Tibetan monks lighting themselves on fire and Eskimos floating off to oblivion on icebergs - life surely is a dark and murky puzzle. Each day must be full of terrible episodes based purely upon ignorance and indifference. This Frito girl is nihilism in motion, nihilism personified.

There is a boat-load of it wherever one looks in America these days, if, that is, one is looking and feeling and not just existing.

Nihilism, according to Merriam-Webster Online, is "a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless"; and it is also defined as "a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths." Clearly, Lynnea - who appears to be searching for moral truths - is put off by this nihilistic white girl with so little to complain about yet so much negativity emerging from her mouth.

But dealing with the whiny Frito girl is nothing compared to what she is about to discover on the first day of her teaching assignment. This classroom situation sets up a perfect literary clash between nihilism and idealism. Idealism, as defined by Merriam-Webster Online, is really two concepts: (1) "a theory that ultimate reality lies in a realm transcending phenomena...a theory that the essential nature of reality lies in consciousness or reason"; and (2) "the practice of forming ideals or living under their influence..

something that is idealized." First of all, prior to teaching, Lynnea is idealistic (as defined in #2) to believe that "Inner-city Baltimore students would be nothing like the whiny white girl from the bus station" (52). And during her training - what an awful, grim and sophomoric style of teaching teachers to work in an inner-urban school environment - she goes up against some crass realities that challenge her idealism.

She is idealistic (53) when "refusing to believe her students would act this way, refusing to participate in team-spirit badness." From rural Kentucky to inner-city Baltimore is an other-worldly trek drenched in confusion and doubt. Comparing the two would be like comparing a tall sturdy pine tree in lush northern Wisconsin to a microscopic speck of dust drifting down from a dead cactus in Afghanistan.

Poor Lynnea, thrown to the wolves in a classroom from hell, after a concentrated training program that no more prepared her for this muddle than reading Deepak Chopra would prepare her for writing a movie review on the film "Clueless." The "collective whimsical talk" of Lynnea's students was "the unsettling buzz of a far-off carnival." That line (54) is interesting, because "buzz" sounds like a hive of bees and "carnival" is where one brushes aside reality and engages in frivolity and silliness.

Packer clearly has a gift with creating tone and imagery, and the scenes throughout this story are richly descriptive. Practically everything and everyone (except Lynnea) seem crude and lacking in grace and idealism in this story. The character of Robert the Cop - who just wants health insurance to take care of a bad tooth, the hell with kids and learning - is just one example. The students are crude, and Bonza - blowing cigarette smoke through nostrils and uttering "his loud piss stream of talk" - is yet another.

And here is Lynnea, who has been wiping her butt with newspapers and is now thrown into a nuthouse where the only thing being learned is that she has to put up with this horror in order to buy toilet paper. On page 61 readers find yet another conflict between nihilism and idealism: Bonza, while seeming to be giving advice to the novice teacher, grabs her and jams his tongue into her while kissing her.

He is the living nihilistic doctrine denying any "moral truth" whatsoever and she is the idealist actually believing he would give her sound advice to help her in the classroom. There was, by the way, a nice foreshadowing to his uncouth stunt, as dead leaves were blown around by the wind. When Sheba arrived, Lynnea didn't know it, but Sheba would become her enforcer.

How totally ironic: a young - but huge - girl with a record for law-breaking is able to silence a rowdy class merely with her swagger and stature. Street-wise kids respect other street-wise kids, it seems. But not teachers. On page 69, Lynnea is taking Sheba home to "Our Lady of Peace" (an ironic title for a place filled with troubled kids), and sees a statue of the.