Initiation in Literature

As we stand together, a group of three testing our capabilities, we roll spoonfuls of thick dough into round balls, and place them onto the newly greased cookie sheet. They start their journey to the oven raw and undefined, pointless even. However in about 13 minutes, these aimless spheres of indecision will come out as perfectly baked cookies. They will be mature, they will have a point, and they will be sure to do what they can to achieve their goal of satisfying our hunger. They will be delicious. They will be stable and solid and wonderful as they make their way down our throats. They will know what they are going to do. They will have been initiated.

Like the way some lives go wrong, some cookies burn. In the story of “Sonny’s Blues” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, meaningless minutes turned into wasted hours and wasted hours turned into hollow days, and after years of struggling, Sonny began to realize that he had a problem. He lived every day with darkness in his eyes and rash decisions dominating his character, favoring sitting alone with his drugs to experiencing the real world. His addiction, his behavior, and the obvious hole in his heart seemed endless, yet somehow too inevitable to fight. Perhaps, above all of his mistakes, Sonny’s real issue was that his initiation came too late. After months of hardship, of pain, of living in a light world of confusion, Sonny came to terms with his addiction. Finally, at a time when he had nothing left, he did not want to deal with the painful moments and countless tears anymore. He wanted to live. Sonny found a new love, and as the music his fingers created rushed through his ears, Sonny realized that it was a sign. Not only did he mature, but he found himself through his music. That was the only way anyone could understand what he was feeling. Like Sonny’s damaged life, a burnt cookie appears to be cracked and ruined, however if you scrape off that scorched layer of black, maybe there is something wonderful hidden beneath the exterior.

Other cookies expect to be baked to perfection, only to find that the oven was never on in the first place. For Dexter Green from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams”, the world suddenly stops when he sets his hazel eyes on young Judy Jones. Her glittering smile and endless ocean of charm make Dexter feel things he’s never experienced before, and the world is suddenly a beautiful carousel of events. He is in love. One day, Judy decides to leave town for another man, without a word, and without a note. Dexter finds no reason why he should smile anymore, or laugh, or appreciate any subtleties of the world. Dexter is nothing without his beautiful love, Judy Jones. Near the end of the story, he sits alone, a young man with nothing to live for. He looks back on his life and sees, despite his accomplishments and wealth and wit, he has nothing. He was never mature enough to look at the things that were making him happy and make them a priority. He was love struck by a fleeting woman, and forgot to set his goals and live his dreams. He is half baked, uncooked, raw and exposed to the world as an irresponsible man carried away by his heart.

Occasionally, a cookie will go into the oven completely naive to the fact that they’ve got all the wrong ingredients. For King Richard from William Shakespeare's play "Richard II", initiation was the moment he realized that he was cooking with baking soda instead of flour. When he finally, after years of education and power, matured, he knew that there was no hope for his survival. He announced to his followers that “comfort is nothing,” and that death was inevitable. He was not the immortal and all powerful king he once liked to believe he was. His initiation taught him while some of us bask in the sunlight of wealth and others curl up in a corner of poverty, we are all equal. You can not pretend that life will never end, because it will, whether you are a prince or pauper. King Richard had lived his whole life in the wrong mind-set, believing that he was better than his followers. Initiation caused him to realize that even a king “feel[s] want, taste[s] grief, [and] need[s] friends.” His focus was on his power and his kingdom, but his world lacked love. King Richard realized too late that his life’s focus was skewed. He was too concentrated on supremacy to live correctly. He missed the flour.

Once in a while, after a million cookies gone wrong, one comes out just right. Initiation is found in the simplest of poems by Emily Dickinson- it’s a perfect initiation, simple and pure. In Dickinson’s poem, “A door just opened,” she talks about how life is going just right, and saying that now is her chance to take the opportunity at hand and grow up. In the first line, “A door just opened on a street,” she is telling the reader that the door to the second half of her life is about to be opened, as if she was a small ball of dough, once aimless, about to be cooked to perfection. She once was lost, but now she sees the light that will lead her to a new beginning. Within that door is a clean slate. Her life is not ending, but just beginning. She is exiting the realms of dough and becoming a real cookie. This poem represents what initiation should be, cooked just right and perfect in every way.

How are we to know what kind of initiation our lives will lead to? There is no telling what our futures will be. They could be burned, scorched and unappealing. They could be raw, confused and lost. They could be wrongly prepared, misunderstood. Or maybe, just maybe, our cookies, our initiation, and our lives will come out perfectly. However we must remember one thing. A layer of darkness can always be removed, a ball of dough can always be put back into the oven, and a recipe can always be rebuilt. Opening up the cookbook of your life is a risk, but there is always a second chance.

Introduction and Conclusion written by Anna Holt
Body Paragraph 1 and 2 written by Julie Philippe
Body Paragraph 3 and 4 written by Caroline Burlingham
Essay edited and constructed by Anna Holt