On Making Choices

“Watch your thoughts, they become words;
watch your words, they become actions;
watch your actions, they become habits;
watch your habits, they become character;
watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

-Original Author Unknown

Identity is shaped by personal choices.  Choices tie the human race together...they are the one thing that we all must face each and every day of our lives.  "The Woman Who Lost Her Names" by Nessa Rapoport and "Covered Bridges" by Barbara Kingsolver are two short stories that follow the important choices made by their respective subjects.  In "The Woman Who Lost Her Names" the choices span over a lifetime, and in "Covered Bridges" they span over just a few days, but the characters change and grow in significant ways as a result of their choices in both stories.

The main character in "The Woman Who Lost Her Names" deeply loves the name she was given at birth for no other reason than that it is hers.  To her, it represents family, culture, home.  Throughout her life, starting with grade school and all the way through her marriage, her name is changed against her will for cultural and traditional reasons.  You might ask, then, if this woman is not making choices for herself, how is this story about choices?  Well, throughout her life, her identity is shaped in the way she allows others around her to make choices for her.  When she meets the man she knows she will marry, she "becomes him"; while she does see a lot of herself in him, it is likely that her own free will is weakened by her expectance to always be in agreement with him.  They differ in their views of identity.  When discussing a time when his name was changed, he says to her, "Just a name...The soul underneath is the same, in better and worse."  She ends up changing her name for him, but in doing so she changes (and sacrifices) so much more...her values, her pride, and her own identity.  In the end, when she gives birth to a daughter, she herself chooses a name for the child that her husband does not agree with.  The end is ambiguous, and the reader is left unsure of which name will be given to the child: the name in which the mother sees beauty and strength, or the father's more traditional choice of a name.  After reading the story and seeing the power that the husband possesses and what little is left of the protagonist's courage, it can be assumed that the husband wins out.  I found this story to be heartbreaking.  The message is that without personal choice, identity is ultimately lost.

On the contrary, the main characters in "Covered Bridges" have complete control over their choices and their lives.  The married couple in the story, in choosing whether or not to have a child, ponder deeply all of the possibilities that come with such a choice.  The story is narrated by the husband.  Lena, his wife, is unsure of what she wants, while the narrator seems to want only what will make his wife happy.  The most significant event in the story is Lena's near-death experience, which leaves the couple shaken and afraid and ultimately leads to Lena's decision to not have a baby.  She comes to view a child as "just one more life you could possibly lose" rather than as a source of love, hope, and happiness.  As I read the story, I thought of a relative of mine who has never owned a pet because she has seen how painful it is for people when their pets die.  While owning a pet can hardly be compared to having a child, the same basic principle stands true: One cannot have great joy without great sorrow, but that doesn't mean that the joy isn't worth having.  In "Covered Bridges," Lena closes the door on something that could have become part of her identity, and all because of fear.  Her husband believes that motherhood would have been right for her, and even though he seems to really want a child by the end of the story, he gives up this dream because his wife has a different life in mind.  In this situation, both characters made choices that shaped their identities in drastic ways.

Lena's view of parenthood reminded me of the song "Witch's Lament" from my favorite musical Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim.  The song is sung by an overprotective mother who has just witnessed the tragic and untimely death of her child.  I believe that this nightmarish image is something like what Lena must have been thinking about when she decided that becoming a mother was not worth the risk of losing that beloved child.

Here's the song, performed by the magnificent Bernadette Peters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jgrh56clNUE

In both stories, dreams were abandoned and potential for happiness was squandered because the characters lacked the courage (or the means) to accept that they might have to experience pain and loss in order to live out their true identity.  To discover our identity, we must know which sacrifices are worth making and which are not truly in our hearts.  We must make choices.