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In earlier post, titled My Sociological Criticism of Dirty Dancing, I summarized the movie's sociological conflict as follows:
The established, professional and prosperous
Houseman family
interacts with some struggling artists.
I elaborated as follows:
There is an ethnic aspect in this interaction, because the Housemans are Jewish and the artists are Gentiles, and that is part of the reason why the family patriarch Jake Houseman is concerned about his daughter Baby's romantic relationship with Johnny Castle. That aspect, however, is only a minor aspect.I elaborated further about the status of artists in the USA in the early 1960s.
The Houseman family conformed to the social conventions that worked well during the 1950s and early 1960s. The men attended universities and the developed professional careers. The women married and managed households that raised children to follow those conventions. Such families prospered.
Other characters in the movie followed the same conventions, although sometimes less than perfectly. Neil Kellerman attended a School of Hotel Management and was trying to find a suitable marriage partner. Robbie Gould attended Yale Medical School and dumped a girlfriend who turned out to be not suitable as a marriage partner.
The movie's major characters who failed to follow the social conventions were Johnny Castle and Penny Johnson, who were struggling to make their livings as professional dancers. Neither of them had obtained a higher education as their basis for developing their careers. Neither of them -- while already in their mid-twenties -- were orienting themselves toward marriage and children.
Johnny and Penny are artists who are struggling professionally and personally. Their economic futures seem bleak. Johnny might have to go back to painting and plastering houses. Penny suffered a close call with an unmarried pregnancy. Johnny and Penny feel intellectually inadequate and lack social self-confidence
The entanglements of Baby and Jake, on one hand, and Penny and Johnny, on the other hand, affect Baby and Jake profoundly. Baby and Jake come to appreciate and even respect Penny and Johnny.
... the struggling artists -- musicians, dancers, writers and so forth -- made their livings by their wits and initiative -- not by earning college credentials. Artists always have struggled in society, but they enjoyed growing opportunities to succeed by the US economy of the early 1960s. Opportunities were developing in the businesses of movies, television, publishing, music, concerts, architecture, decoration and so forth. The artists' role and importance in American society was changing and growing.======
The movie's Houseman family was basically similar to the screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein's family. Eleanor's father was a doctor, and Eleanor was the younger of two daughters. We can assume that Eleanor's mother was a housewife and that her older sister was conventionally feminine, similar to Lisa Houseman.
I speculate that Eleanor felt a special expectation that she should please her father by becoming, in some ways, the son whom her father never would raise. Perhaps, for example, Eleanor felt that she should follow in her father's footsteps by becoming a doctor. At least, Eleanor should establish a professional career so that her father would be able to to provide professional advice and guidance to her, as a father normally would provide to a son.
As Eleanor's life developed, however, she spent her young adulthood being a female dancer and then became a writer of stories for female audiences. In other words, she never became her father's son by establishing a professional career.
Rather, Eleanor became an artist -- a dancer and a writer. Furthermore, she married an artist -- a poet who made his living by teaching English. I am sure that Eleanor's parents would have been happier if she had brought home a serious boyfriend who was -- not an aspiring poet -- a medical student.
Although Eleanor's husband eventually became a professor at Princeton University, where he surely earned a good salary and benefits, she and he surely struggled for many years of their young adulthood because they decided to live mainly as artists.
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The following video clips from the movie Sylvia shows the poor living conditions of a couple of poets -- Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes -- at the early 1960s.
In these video clips, Plath and Hughes become acquainted with another couple of poets. The two couples try to become friends, but the attempt is spoiled by Sylvia's chronic jealously and resentment toward Ted.
Sylvia's manic-depressive order is aggravated by the hopeless economic poverty of her marriage.
Because of Ted's adultery, Sylvia separates from him, which will impoverish both of them even more.
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Before the invention of recorded music, good poets could earn relatively comfortable livings by writing poetry. Magazines and newspapers published poetry, and poetry books sold well. Poets toured and recited their poetry to paying audiences in concert halls.
Because the poems' ideas, rhythm and rhymes were clear, poems could be enjoyed without recorded music, which still did not exist.
Edgar Allen Poe's poem The Raven was treated like a number-one hit song is treated now. Poe went on tour and performed to paying audiences. Because writing poetry could be profitable, the poetry was superb. For example, Poe's popular poem The Raven captivates attention in its first stanza.
Once upon a midnight dreary,Henry Wadsworth Longfellow likewise earned a rather good living by writing and performing poetry. Because people paid for poetry, it was good; because it was good, people paid for it. Following is Longfellow's poem "The Children's Hour."
While I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious
Volume of forgotten lore —
While I nodded, nearly napping,
Suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping,
Rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered,
“Tapping at my chamber door —
Only this and nothing more.”
Between the dark and the daylight,Following is Longfellow's poem The Rainy Day
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupations,
That is known as the Children's Hour.
I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.
From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.
A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.
A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!
They climb up into my turret
O'er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.
They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!
Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!
I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;======
It rains,and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains,and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
After recorded music was invented, the poetic tradition continued for several decades. The lyrics continued to be good poetry, continuing the poetic cannon. The following video shows Ella Fitzgerald and The Inkspots singing the derivative song "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall" in about 1944.
Into each life some rain must fall,=====
But too much is falling in mine.
Into each heart some tears must fall,
But some day the sun will shine.
Some folks can lose the blues in their hearts,
But when I think of you another shower starts.
Into each life some rain must fall,
But too much is falling in mine.
By the early 1960s, however, when Plath and Hughes were trying to make their livings by writing poetry, that occupation no longer earned money, except for a very few people.
A rare example of someone who made money by writing and performing poetry was Rod McKuen, who sings his hit song "If You Go Away" in about 1965.
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In 1963, the year when Sylvia Plath committed suicide, the year's top song was "Sugar Shack". Because poetry still had not become totally decadent, the song at least had rhythm and rhyme, but the lyrics were inane.
There's a crazy little shack beyond the tracks,
And everybody calls it the sugar shack.
Well, it's just a coffeehouse, and it's made out of wood.
Espresso coffee tastes mighty good.
That's not the reason why I've got to get back
To that sugar shack.
There's this cute little girlie, she's working there --
A black leotard and her feet are bare.
I'm gonna drink a lot of coffee, spend a little cash.
Make that girl love me when I put on some trash.
You can understand why I've got to get back
To that sugar shack.
Now that sugar-shack queen is married to me.
We just sit around and dream of those old memories.
But one of these days I'm gonna lay down tracks
In the direction of that sugar shack.
Just me and her, we're going to go back
To that sugar shack.
The lyrics could be inane doggerel, because they were merely a minor part of the whole, which was dominated by the instrumental music, the visual presentation, and the promotional marketing.
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Ten years earlier, in 1953, Plath had traveled to New York City with hopes of beginning a career as a writer. She squandered that attempt and then suffered a mental breakdown.
Plath's writing career did not get restarted until she moved to England and met Hughes in 1956. Then they decided that they would try to make their living together by writing poetry.
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I will continue this article in Part 5.
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