Object Lessons

Amy L Cornell on the Power and Importance of Objects in our Writing

Objects have lives. They are witness to things
~Ira Glass, This American Life

In college, I shared a living space with a witty engineering student named Luanne. One chilly day Luanne lent me a bright red pullover sweater with a black stripe across the top. It was two sizes too big, and I loved it. I kept it. Returned it. Kept it, and eventually, when I confessed how much I loved that sweater, Luanne said, “It is my gift to you.” One of my favourite memories of Luanne is that when she broke up with the guy she had been dating most of the year, she kept his class ring. When the guy came around to get his ring back, she told him, “No, not until you give me back the two years of my life, I wasted with you!”  Damn. That line and Luanne’s sass would stay with me and the sweater.

We had a great year together. The hot water didn’t work, so we complained our way through cold showers. We bought a blender and made frozen daiquiris in our shared living space. We shared music we loved on our boom boxes. She told me stories of her growing up, one of three girls, in Chicago. We laughed a lot. We cried some.

I graduated, lived in Chicago for a few years, and finally went away to graduate school, Luanne’s sweater packed in my bags. It was that familiar piece of clothing, the one you love because it fits the way you want it to. It was warm, comforting, and in this case, reminded me of my friend Luanne, who was on a co-op program and left for some other city to work, as I was graduating. If love were a sweater, it would be this sweater, and I was taking it with me to Indiana.

While I was living in Chicago, I met Molly Ramanujan in an adult learning class held at the University of Chicago’s continuing education program, the Compleate Gargoyle.   Ms. Ramanujan offered a Saturday morning writing workshop at U of C’s southside campus, and on Sunday evenings, all her students gathered at Jimmy’s Woodlawn Tap to read what they had written to each other. I made my way down there from my Wrigleyville apartment every Saturday and Sunday to take her beginning writing class and participate in the writing life as it was envisioned at Jimmy’s.  Ms. Ramanujan was not a prolific writer herself, but she was a master at teaching her craft. She had developed a strong following down there on the south side, and for a few brief semesters, before leaving town for graduate school, I was one of her ardent fans.

Molly had one basic lesson which she drove home for us week after week in our writing seminars, and which has stayed with me now for over 30 years. It is a lesson which I have carried with me through all the fiction and non-fiction I have written and read, and through all the workshops and writing circles I have led.

My teacher believed in the capacity of an object to tell one’s story. Her teaching method, which she called “The Clothesline School,” consisted mostly of exercises which mined one’s past for memories and then, recollections fresh at hand, one would list each object that was associated with that memory. The best objects were the ones that inspired uncomfortable memories. She would also say, “What’s good in life is bad on the page, and what’s bad in life is good on the page.”

Repeatedly, we listed objects from our lives and were prompted to circle an item if it had negative connotations or ironic messages (think, the bald man’s comb) and cross items out if they had positive vibes. Our lesson was to extract double meanings from these objects, look for dark subtexts, and use simple things richly described to convey complex situations or subtle themes.

Each object was scrutinized for its story telling potential, and we were drilled hard to find the double meanings in those items of our past. Molly could take an object and weave the most provocative tales around it. All these exercises, worked diligently in the fluorescent classroom on Saturday mornings, instilled in me the ability to discover the power in the concrete objects of our stories.

I have learned to recognize iconic items in everything I see on the big screen and from my extensive reading list: wands from Harry Potter, the titular ring from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jo’s burned writing from Little Women, the loaded gun, the sword in the stone, the mirror on the wall, Mary Tyler Moore’s tossed hat, or probably the most famous object in media history, Rosebud. Everything we read and watch and, more importantly, what we remember, these stories stay rooted in the objects we single out, write about, and place prominently in our scenes. I have no doubt that the writer of Genesis knew exactly what they were doing when they put a piece of fruit from the tree of knowledge in Eve’s hand. “Let’s give them something to remember sin by!”

I learned to list the objects that reminded me of my father, recording as many sensory things as I could next to each item. If the leather jacket reminds you of your father, what did it look like, smell like, feel like? Give the reader a vivid picture of your dad’s jacket. We might not be able to understand or remember the complex inner workings of the relationship between you and your father, but when you put them in a jacket and put that jacket on your back, you have said it all. Our memories stay there, caressing that black suede jacket right along with you.

If you reflect on the memorable parts of the prose or even the poetry you love, you almost always will find an object at the center of it. I love writing about objects for the ability to convey so much with so little.

Since I started writing this essay, I have been asking myself what constitutes an object. Is a house an object? A car? Your little brother? The cat? For me, any inanimate thing that you can describe with specificity, sensory details, and context constitutes an object. I like to think that smaller is better; certainly, the smaller the object, the easier it is to get up close and personal with it. The easier it is to leave it on tables and pack it in suitcases, and throw it around, which adds layers to meaning. Your readers will envision the yellow flower you leave on the piano and the baseball with the smudged signature. Your house can be an object, but after describing and living in it, or watching the ghosts haunt it, the house becomes more of a setting than an object. Your little brother is not so much an object as he is a character. I do believe objects, for the purposes of our writing, are smaller inanimate items that can easily be tossed, waved, bought and sold or worn on a chilly night.

As you think about, explore, and write about objects, you’ll notice how they place the reader at the center of the action by delivering powerful symbolic images which resonate long after the story ends. If you don’t believe me, think of the last 5 books you’ve read. You’ll remember the general plot. I expect you’ve forgotten the characters’ names, but most likely any scenes or plot points that were driven by objects will stand out for you. I recently read Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go and was drawn into the sorrow of the children through a cassette tape they lost and then found. My teacher, Ms. Ramanujan’s favorite object was Madam Bovary’s cigarette case.

Next time you are at a loss for where to go with your writing, clean out your purse or wallet and pick out the five objects that provoke a story. Or go to your kitchen and write about your mother based on the kitchen objects you see. Garages are filled with provocative things that hold the promise of stories. Grab that hammer or the box of old Christmas lights or the broken flowerpots from that summer you tried to garden. Or write a poem about the items you find in pockets before doing the laundry. Again and again, our belongings have a magical way of pulling the reader into the narrative and conveying symbolic meaning wherever they are present.

I wore my red sweater all over my new campus that fall. The sweater was a little piece of my old roommate following me everywhere. In the years before social media, it was not as easy to stay connected with everyone and wearing the sweater was my connection to Luanne. Remembrance of our shared living space and carefree days of college. One afternoon, I stepped into the campus gym and onto a racquetball court to play a few rounds with a new friend. I left my sweater outside the door, and when I came out 45 minutes later it was gone, stolen. I walked up and down the corridor, checked in the building’s lost and found and for weeks stalked the gym waiting to see someone wearing my sweater, but it was gone.  More than 30 years later, I still feel sad about it.  Remembering how it kept me warm during cold Chicago winters, the friendship with Luanne, the roominess of an oversized pullover, and my friend’s kind, simple gesture -giving me the sweater she saw I loved.  That is a lot of meaning for an object, and it is something I will carry with me for a long time to come. I’ve never cared for the methods of housecleaning that tell us to throw away all our things, which are often the objects and ideas of our best stories, our best memories, our best lives. What objects can you write about that readers will carry with them?

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Featured Image Photo by Jemimah Gray on Unsplash