Sean Dwyer

WC: 258

4/25

“If God came I was supposed to say that “my mother is not home and I’m not allowed to have any company. God never came by but some kids would try to get me to come out.” (Smart-Grosvenor 31)

“They told me that Santa would come on the Saturday after Christmas but the rent was due on that Saturday and he didn’t come at all. So I had lost the faith and I wanted my party then.” (Smart-Grosvenor: 31)

“I thought what the hell am I doing in Iceland eating this terrible fish stew. Another time was when I spent a lot of money and it didn’t turn out very well. I later found a food shop that sells bouillabaisse in the can for 98 cents. It’s not bad, at least not as bad as mine.” (Smart-Grosvenor: 39)

“Carlitos’s little sister was born in 2010, “a beautiful baby” according to Yaffa. “Carlitos’s birth stands for a whole lot more than a child born without arms and legs,” Yaffa said. “This child has changed the system.” Or part of the system.” (Estabrook: 72)

How could someone do those things? Why? There is a quote, “Everyone wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die”. Yaffa reminds me of the book Watership Down, the allegorical tale of a few heroic bunnies proudly creating their niche amongst a group. Yaffa felt a goodness in his ability to be good, and was able to change his perception of his effort to be good to match the familiar sense of his perceived goodness, and when a reason to doubt his ability to be good came about his effort to reinforce his perception of his sense of self became present, although his true sense of self might surprise his perception. Yaffa has skills as demonstrated in the recording of the courtroom discussion, but how those skills were developed becomes clear when the recognition and affirmation of his skills were no longer present. Yaffa thought he was Lord Frith and became El-ahrairah in that moment because he didn’t know they were the same, “a classic case of the fox guarding the hen house” (Estabrook: 44). Lord Frith does not exist because they are a lord. The trial in Tomatoland is no different than The Trial of El-ahrairah. Cisneros is Hufsa. Hufsa, as described by the wikipedia on Watership Down, is “a rabbit placed in El-ahrairah’s warren as a spy, thwarting many of El-ahrairah’s plots and tricks before discovered. To rabbits, Hufsa’s name is synonymous with “traitor”. Before howling at Donald Long, or Mr. Simmons (Smart-Grosvenor: 31), are you in Donald Long’s den? Or your own?