Aner Clute - Edgar Lee Masters

OVER and over they used to ask me,
While buying the wine or the beer,
In Peoria first, and later in Chicago,
Denver, Frisco, New York, wherever I lived
How I happened to lead the life,
And what was the start of it.
Well, I told them a silk dress,
And a promise of marriage from a rich man--
(It was Lucius Atherton).
But that was not really it at all.
Suppose a boy steals an apple
From the tray at the grocery store,
And they all begin to call him a thief,
The editor, minister, judge, and all the people--
"A thief," "a thief," "a thief," wherever he goes
And he can't get work, and he can't get bread
Without stealing it, why the boy will steal.
It's the way the people regard the theft of the apple
That makes the boy what he is.



"Acest cerc vicios se regăseşte în toate circumstanţele analoage: când un individ sau un grup de indivizi e menţinut în stare de inferioritate, adevărul e că este inferior; dar ar trebui să ne înţelegem asupra valorii cuvântului a fi; reauacredinţă constă în a-i acorda o valoare substanţială în vreme ce el are sensul dinamic hegelian: a fi înseamnă a fi devenit, înseamnă a fi fost făcut aşa cum te manifeşti." - Simone de Beauvoir