(Response to commentary by essayist Diane Roberts, who teaches English at Florida State University on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday, and on the shooting of dozens of students and teachers at Virginia Tech this past week.)
Beginning her commentary with a list of the disturbing graphic violence found in writings of respected authors, among them Williams Faulkner and Shakespeare, Diane Roberts comments on the fatuity of media "rent-a-shrinks" who believe that the Virginia Tech shooter's intentions were evident in his writing.
Her student writers often fill their stories with fantasies of revenge and fantasies of horrible deaths for characters who are their stand-ins. Feeling powerless and feeling oppressed is part of being young; so is feeling sorry for yourself. Dreaming of power, then, is a corrective, along with dreaming of revenge, and dreaming of the gratifying grief and regret at their own funerals.
There's another simple observation by the wise and witty Frederick Buechner in his masterpiece quartet of novels collected as THE BOOK OF BEBB. The narrator, a high school English teacher, comments on grading his juniors' stories with their "usual quota" of fatal car crashes and violence, as the students inject death in their stories to make up for the lack of anything resembling real life in them.
Cho's fantasies weren't different, and it's clear that he felt a lack of "real life" in his own life -- just like many others his age. But a healthy mind draws a line between fantasy and reality.
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