Stanley

As a soon-to-be teacher, I can't help looking at situations with those eyes. Besides that I just came out of a very passionate class where we were discussing students situations and fostering them....aka, I'm still wound up and Stanley's character has had me thinking for a while.

Hochschild tells the story of Stanley's early life. He is born a bastard child to a mother who doesn't seem to care about him because as a newborn, she leaves him with his uncles and grandfather. What kind of life would that have been for him? No caring, or at least not a whole lot, and living with people who believed that a boy needed a "sound whipping" if he misbehaved. Not only that, at five years old he was passed off to another family who also got rid of him by lying that he was going to visit "Aunt Mary," when in reality they were going to leave him at a workhouse!

I have constantly been amazed that a child like that went on to become a great explorer, successful in his choice of occupation. However, this also came about through lie after lie and disappointment after disappointment. He changed his name countless times and then when he desired to marry (after he had been sexually abused as a child), his fiances would take off on him and marry someone else!

I am also amazed that he wrote for the newspaper, yet constantly remind myself of the lies that he kept up, even when a good many people doubted the truth of his claims. So why wouldn't he be able to tell a story well enough to have it published in the newspaper.

I mentioned at the beginning that I look at this from a teacher-like perspective. I guess his story encourages me. Even when I have students who come from the worst family situations and maybe don't make the choices that I think are appropriate or even correct in society, that even these people can go on in life and be successful and amazing people. Stanley became a great explorer that was noticed by people in high places (Ruler of Belgium, King Leopold!!).

And then it makes me think to myself that I can do with life what I want, in a sense. Stanley decided that he didn't want to live the life that he was expected to because of his childhood. He decided that he wanted to be successful and do something exciting and new with his life. And when at first he didn't succeed, he tried again and again and made his life something that others read about.

Now I don't know if he was ever a real person, but his story can still inspire us all to do what our hearts desire and to become what we know we can be. We shouldn't ever let the world hold us back, because Stanley showed us that even the seemingly impossible can happen if we work at it with all of our being.

P.S. As I was looking for information to link to this blog, I found a blog that is maintained by a class of students in New York who read some of King Leopold's Ghost and had a few questions of their own to ask to the world.