Humbug! Hoaxes in Literature and Culture.

“Why do the Yankees always win?” “‘Cause they have Mickey Mantle?” “No, it’s ’cause the other teams can’t stop staring at those damn pinstripes.”

The question Frank Abagnale Sr. asks his son, Frank Abagnale Jr., captures the plot as well as the theme of the movie. In the movie Catch Me If You Can the FBI agent, Carl Hanratty, who is after con artist Frank Abagnale Jr. comes to develop a pseudo father-son like relationship. Frank Abagnale Jr. was a con-artist and forger that at the age of 17 he already stole millions from banks through deception. This exchange between Frank Abagnale and his father set forth the idea of looking too closely and missing the bigger picture. The Yankees reference is relevant to Frank because he is from New York. In fact, “the Yankees” in this quote represents Frank Abagnale Jr. who successfully pulls off his hoaxes multiple times. He doesn’t get caught by “the other teams” because the authorities are always looking for the wrong thing.What his father says reminds me of another movie pertaining to hoaxes as well, Now You See Me, and the quote from that film: “The closer you look the less you’ll see.” The use of the word “damn” gives Frank Abagnale Sr. more of a personality and an authoritative tone. Only adults are able to use cuss words back in the day and Frank Abagnale Jr. seems to be the young boy that gets the question wrong, which is ironic.

“You cannot run from this. It will follow you. It may lay dormant for years. Something may trigger it to become more active and it may over time reach out to communicate with you.”

This is a quote from the movie Paranormal Activity. The quote is spoken by a psychic, Dr. Fredrichs, to the owners of the home, Katie and Micah. The source of the quote, has credibility since it is said by a ‘Doctor’. As for syntax, the first two sentences are choppy, basic statements, and the simplicity combined with its dark message amplifies its scariness. The thought of something following you wherever you go is terrifying and disrupts one’s sense of security. The wording of the second sentence is very vague. “It MAY lay dormant for years” and “something MAY trigger it”, uses uncertainty to cause uneasiness about everything that the characters do, and “communicate” could mean communicate in violent or horrifying ways. This tells us about the development of the story in that anything seems to be possible. Given that it is a horror film, that essentially foreshadows the horror to come. There are effectively no restrictions and no boundaries on what can happen. It gives off an eerie vibe and thus an ominous tone. Although it is a horror film, it is still impossible to totally discount everything in the movie- it is so real. The perspective of the movie is through a camera’s lens which is a neutral bystander and does not react to subtlety horrifying changes in the environment if the humans don’t know about it.

“It is a melancholly Object to those, who walk through this great Town, or travel in the Country, when they see the Streets, the Roads, and Cabbin-Doors, crowded with Beggars of the female Sex, followed by three, four, or six Children, all in Rags, and importuning every Passenger for an Alms. These Mothers instead of being able to work for their honest livelyhood, are forced to employ all their time in Stroling, to beg Sustenance for their helpless Infants, who, as they grow up either turn Thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native Country to fight for the Pretender in Spain, 2  or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.”

The author first starts out by adding imagery to this opening paragraph. He points out what one might see while walking through the streets of Ireland on a typical day: “the streets, the roads and cabin-doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex.” He makes it a point that these beggars are mothers with many kids to add to his overall proposal of making use of these kids that he reveals later in the story. He uses strong verbs like “forced ” and fight to convey the idea that these mothers have no choice. This is the only method they have to make an income. Using adjectives like “melancholy” and “helpless” add to the incapability of the mothers and provides an ambience that promotes that. He first lays out the actions of the mothers, and then the outcome of the children to evoke an emotion from the audience. He wants them to feel pity for the mothers and their children to ultimately persuade them into believing that his proposal is a good idea. In this way he is using Pathos to convey his idea.

“This disease is my enemy. A fetus is damaged when the mother drinks alcohol.”

This hoax is about the story of a fake Navajo writer, named Nasdjii, who claimed that his adopted son, died of fetal alcohol syndrome. The first sentence draws in the seriousness of the disease to the Native Americans, and the fact that he calls it his enemy reinforces his love for his dying son; he would defeat this enemy of a disease if it meant the Navajo children could live longer. Because the disease is known to kill the children it affects, it draws forth questions on why he reiterates its effects so many times. Who is he trying to convince of what? His use of the word disease instead of illness shows how he believes that a foreign matter has infected his son, rather than his son being born with such a sickness that makes him ill. The brevity of the sentence, no explanations or details, may hint to the hoax-like qualities where he avoids giving specifics about Tommy’s short life.

The second sentence moves on to talk about how FAS comes about. It places all blame completely on the mother, and tying it into the first sentence, it makes it seem as if because the mother is the cause of the disease, the mother is automatically apart of the of the problem, an enemy to the health of the child. The first part of the sentence, “a fetus is damaged” could be representative of his beliefs that a baby is not a baby until it is born, and also the fact that he says damaged instead of more harmful words  is effective in representing his optimism of life. A person can live a damaged life, but they cannot live a doomed or dead life. The vagueness of the statement alcohol instead of specifying which kind if any has more of an affect on the health of the fetus shows the lack of knowledge that Nasdjii really has  about this so called illness. It also shows how much his cultural knew about medicine at the time, if this is a part of the hoax or an actual thing he had no idea about is unclear.

“The eyes are the windows to the soul.”

Tim Burton’s Big Eyes focuses on the deception and fraud built upon a marriage between Margaret and Walter Keane. Eyes are a huge focus in this movie, as Burton explores a ten-year hoax in which Walter Keane took full credit for his wife’s paintings, which depict children with very large, deep eyes.

Margaret is the first to state that “the eyes are the windows to the soul”, only to have her husband state the exact same thing during an interview where he attempts to explain his supposed “inspiration” for these paintings. However, this quote has much more meaning coming from the mouth of Margaret as opposed to Walter.

Similarly, the quote itself can represent the difference between Margaret and Walter, along with their intentions. Describing the eyes as a metaphor of the soul, it can be seen in the paintings the intense emotion and passion inside Margaret’s soul through each one of her Big Eyes portraits. In comparison, every supposed painting composed by Walter is simply a stolen work from another artist. This quote means nothing coming from him, just as if you were to peer into his eyes it would most likely be blank and emotionless, feeding off of the intense passion of others.

Although this quote is short, it is certainly effective. It sets the tone for the whole movie, as we, as the readers, must be able to peer through the windows, or eyes, of the characters in order to see their real intentions. Burton does an excellent job at executing the importance of the symbolism of eyes in this great representation of the Big Eyes hoax.

“AFTER THE very minute and elaborate paper by Arago, to say nothing of the summary in ‘Silliman’s Journal,’ with the detailed statement just published by Lieutenant Maury, it will not be supposed, of course, that in offering a few hurried remarks in reference to Von Kempelen’s discovery, I have any design to look at the subject in a scientific point of view.”

In this sentence Edgar Allan Poe mentions Silliman’s Journal which is an American scientific journal at the time, which he will highlight when referring to science. When he begins the sentence “After the very minute” it shows the urgency of the topic of this paper. Poe’s use of discovery adds on to how Von Kempelen’s hoax was taken as scientific. At the end of the point Poe is explaining on how he isn’t taking a scientific perspective in his paper. When Poe uses “a few hurried remarks” the image of him writing this in a hasty fashion comes to my mind, along with the idea of him abruptly trying to get this out to society.

This quote shows that Poe’s tone is skeptical to what was quickly assumed to be as fact. A theme shown in this quote is the legitimacy of science, he claims to take a different stance than the one science takes even though science is often taken as solid truth. This gives us a lead into what his short essay was going to further elaborate on and go into detail about.

“It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms.”  From Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”.

Swift sets the scene for his proposal using indicative and compelling ideas to establish an authoritative ethos. In particular, the words crowded, beggars, rags, and alms project an overarching sense on poverty in his address. He provides many examples of this poverty in order to strengthen his original observation about the melancholic state of affairs in the town and country. His observation carries significance as it is the first thing he mentions in his work. It indicates that he will use his observation as evidence supporting a broader point later in the essay because he gives the reader a logical rationale to understand his argument. He mentions beggars of the female sex in particular, signifying the importance of the distinction between the levels of poverty between males and females. He draws on this distinction by mentioning children, adding motherly characteristics to the beggars and once again, sets up evidence supporting a later argument. He uses both the images of poverty and the abundance of children to offer a comprehensive solution to the melancholic situation at hand. The children, he proposes, should be used as food to feed starving people, eliminating both of the problems he presents in the first sentence.

“He was so flawed. But his fishing tackle was sublime.”

“The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams” is a memoir written by Nasdijj, a Native American man eventually discovered to be a fraud, describing his experiences living in harsh conditions with a son diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome. Although the sentence is a simple statement contrasting the son, Tommy Nothing Fancy, with his fishing tackle, it conveys a sense of both despair and revelation. Nasdijj introduces Tommy to fishing as an outlet where he can act himself and enjoy the time away from the harsh Native American lifestyle. Fishing becomes the one reliable thing in Tommy’s world of constant struggles with seizures and uncertainty that will always be a source of light and beauty. Describing fishing tackle as “sublime” may at first sound questionable; however, when considering Tommy’s diagnosis and his unfortunate circumstances, the fishing tackle may be interpreted as one of the few “perfect imperfections” that highlight the beauty of life. One of the underlying themes of the story may be the idea that despite the unfortunate circumstances of one’s life, there is always something, even if to a small degree, that will bring joy to someone. Fishing will always be a part of Tommy; he not only grows up fishing but also dies while on the boat with his father. The simplicity of the statement almost correlates to the notion that sometime the most ordinary things in life bring people the greatest joy.

“From 1964 to 1966 I successfully impersonated an airline pilot for Pan Am Airlines, and flew over two million miles for free. During that time I was also the Chief Resident Pediatrician at a Georgia hospital, the Assistant Attorney General for the state of Louisiana, and a Professor of American History at a prestigious University in France. By the time I was caught and sentenced to prison, I had cashed over six million dollars in fraudulent checks in 26 foreign countries and all fifty states, and I did it all before my 18th birthday.”

There are two immediate things that stick out in one of the first lines to the movie “Catch Me If You Can”. The use of diction and subtle words in these two sentences really speak out to the cocky and proud character. He “successfully impersonated”, “also”, “prestigious”, “By the time”, and “did it all before…” These words specifically speak volumes of just how, not only smart, this kid must have been, but just how much of a smart mouth he must have been as well. This character committed all these crimes but through his diction, there seems to be no guilty or sense for repenting for what he has done. Likewise, he is naming all these high position occupations that one would be impressed with and he easily impersonated people of those jobs. What escalates the overall impressive mood that he is trying to set is the use of numbers and listing. In doing this, the reader is provided job, after job, another after impressive job. The use of numbers also such as two million and twenty-six does the same in making his achievements all the more impressive and jaw dropping.

Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, ’till he hath at least some glympse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice.

• Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”

This sentence is essentially asking that no one state that his ideas are barbaric until they’ve tried them, which seems completely unreasonable; after all he’s suggesting that the poor sell their children as food! The use of the word “therefore” presents this sentence as a conclusion that can be logically reached based on the paragraph before it. Swift follows this up with “I repeat” which creates a sense of importance and makes the reader pay attention to the rest of the sentence.  His use of “expedients” in stead of something like “ideas” acknowledges that many people may see these propositions as immoral, but also attempts to drive home that idea that his ideas are still practical. The sentence continues with words like “hearty” and “sincere” that describe the attempt that one must complete before they can challenge the idea. Swift argues that people must actually attempt to use his idea of selling children for food before they can accurately judge if it is a good idea or not. Furthermore, they must do it sincerely. This is a direct argument against people who just want to decide if an idea is good or not without actually trying it. This sentence has an almost accusatory tone towards those who don’t want to put his idea into practice. This sentence makes an effective argument, but is nearly impossible to take seriously, although some thought that Swift’s truly believed that people should use his ideas because of bold sentences like this one.