Re: Fear and Trembling - Left handedness
AntiUtopia@aol.com
Fri, 26 Nov 1999 20:16:26 -0500 (EST)
In a message dated 11/26/99 2:28:44 PM Eastern Standard Time,
tangerineness@hotmail.com writes:
> Thank you, Jared, for bringing this topic up. I must say quickly that
> left-handedness is my favorite topic, and actually fairly Salinger
related.
> I wrote a final paper on "left" and "right" in Franny and Zooey. I'd be
> interested to know what people think of these quotes, and how they relate.
> I'm a bit unsure what to say on this right now, but that "left" represents
> evil in the bible, and sinister is the latin word for left-handed.
Beginning
>
> with early Christian art the "bad guy" would be placed to the left of the
> "good guy" to show this. (I personally don't like that much). Another note
> is that the heart is on the left, and symbolically, then, love comes from
> the left side. A friend of mine said that the church puts the wedding ring
> on the left hand to somehow stop creativity and love and such, and force
the
>
> woman to become less indepenent. Just some side notes, I'd like to hear
what
>
> others think on this.
> Catherine
Nonono ... the left hand isn't "evil" in the Bible (at least exclusively),
it's also used in the sense of "secondary." Yes, the goats go to the left
and the sheep to the right, but at the same time the Number 2 and 3 positions
(in a heirarchy) were also signified by the "right and left hand."
At any rate, you really do have a workable thesis here because the
distinctions between "right and left hand" are pretty deeply embedded into
western culture, at least. It would be interesting to see how Salinger used
this.
I'd explain the phenomena as being the product of the majority of people
being right handed and little else.
Jim