By Andrew R. H. Jones
I. Background Information: Joshua Davis is a graduate-level student at Princeton during the second Red Scare. He is extremely interested in socialism, although he does not advocate Stalinism. He wants to become politically active. While teaching a course on Marxism, McCarthy has just begun purging educators believed to be “Un-American.”
II. Joshua meets Rachel Smith, a senior in undergraduate school at Princeton in political science, and she is working on her senior thesis. She is unsure of what the thesis of her thesis is, though, and she could just kick herself for not thinking about this sooner. She likes Joshua a lot, and is intrigued by his intellect and does not mind his interest in socialism.
III. Joshua and Rachel begin dating; Joshua grows deeper into socialist thought while Rachel grows more and more confused about her thesis. Joshua understands the flaws of Stalin and does not view him as an effective socialist leader, but he also feels that socialism is the way to go and that the errors of Stalin can be reformed. Stalin’s mistakes convince him that democratic socialism is the only form of socialism that would work. He hears about problems with Mosaddeq and disagrees that Mosaddeq is as evil as people say he is. Joshua decides to become peacefully, politically, active in the socialist cause.
IV. Joshua and Rachel start dating, and they are definitely a pair of lovebirds. Joshua is sensitive; however, to his socialist cause, and therefore when they go places where there are distinct symbols of capitalism, such as basketball games, Joshua grows upset. There are scenes where Joshua is found talking to Rachel about love, politics, literature, etc. in her apartment. They tell each other sweet stories and talk for hours sometimes at night, never stopping to do anything else.
V. Joshua finally becomes fully active with a group of Soviet patriots (who are actually Soviet spies, although Joshua does not fully realize this), and one night he calls Rachel to come see him because he wants her to meet Boris and Sergei, the two Soviets. She comes and is nice to them but grows very upset when she realizes that these men are Soviet nationalists. She runs out of the building (it is raining outside) and Joshua follows. He says to her:
“Rachel…Rachel, wait, stop! How can you—How can you expect me to be passionate about this cause and not do anything about it? How could you not expect this?”
“Well, I didn’t think you would actually do anything like this! I didn’t think you were actually plotting to overthrow the government!”
“Rachel, I would never hurt anyone!”
“But, Joshua, they would! Don’t you see? God damn it, Joshua, you could get killed if anyone found you here! I’m leaving, Joshua, I’m going home!”
”Wait—Rachel, I love you!"
VI. Rachel goes back to Joshua, and he says he will “leave without a trace” and never come back to the Soviet’s headquarters. They are shown walking away from the Soviet headquarters hand-in-hand.
VII. End Monologue:
Joshua. Things never turn out the way that we expect them to. We are growing older everyday, and growing up is one of the most unpredictable things in the world. Many of the greatest tyrants of all time have been passionate and visionary in their youthful days. But as people grow older, they change. They become more corrupt, and it takes more and more thought to do the right thing than it does when one is youth, as opposed to the emotional moral conscience of young revolutionaries. Several historical and even religious figures would fall into this category, it seems like everybody in the Bible has some kind of dirt against them, except for Jesus, of course, who has little dirt Biblically associated with him. And I try, despite my growth, to keep his message in my aging heart: Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the humble.
Rachel. Life… is confusing. Sometimes we think we know what something is, what a certain event or emotion is, and we only find out that we had no idea what that event was like or what that emotion felt like. Take for instance, love. I never knew what true love meant until my senior year of college, despite the fact that I said “I love you” to men before and that I thought that I had been in love before. Joshua is the only person that I feel completely safe around; despite his emotional… softness and tenderness, which only attract me even more to him…
Joshua. Rachel is definitely humble, if not poor in spirit. And I feel completely happy when I am around her. I feel completely worry-free whenever I am with her, and, more importantly, I don’t feel obligated to buy her things—not that it would bother me to buy her things (I love her enough to buy her the sun, the moon, and the stars if I had enough money.), but buying her too much would be against my politics. Speaking of politics, I don’t have the firm political basis that I had before, but I don’t think I need it. I am currently writing a lot of socialist literature, and I am presenting this to my class. I am not forcing it upon them, because I want them to think for themselves, as I feel I should do as well. I don’t always think for myself, but I am doing well with it. I know that absolute communism would not work. It hasn’t worked in the past. But absolute capitalism doesn’t work either; in fact, absolute capitalism is a training ground for mob-activity, drug abuse, and racism. Perhaps one day a member of an American socialist party will be elected president, and I wouldn’t want a socialist president to come about in any other way. So, I am starting to see that practically every reasonable philosophy or political evaluation is valid in many ways. I think that most Americans understand this, despite the fact that over half of them are manipulated by Mr. McCarthy every day. But I think the end is coming very soon for McCarthy. I have recently written an article on the damages of McCarthyism to American society many people who have read it have agreed. A man like McCarthy isn’t eloquent or intelligent enough to keep the American people brainwashed. And people will see this eventually.
Rachel. As for my thesis, I feel that it has developed every day since I met Joshua. His mind is extraordinarily thoughtful and kind, and so it produces many in-depth and ethical approaches to politics. I am focusing more on the ideals that Joshua introduced me, such as feminism and Marxism. But I also recognize that there are many valid points in practically every political system or political philosophy that I have studied in my five years at Princeton. But the last year was the most educational period of my life, as I not only learned so much about politics, but I also learned so much about myself and what I want in life. I have met several different students, all of at least some insignificantly different background, all having at least insignificant amounts of differences, and most of them have many thoughts to share with others and many words to say. And, so I guess because of this, the thesis of my thesis has developed to reflect that all people have something to say and that every ideology has some redeeming quality. And so, in essence, my thesis of my thesis can be summed up in three words: “All is real.”
Joshua. Despite the bad things that happen, there are many good things. There is love, there is Jesus, there is pizza, and there is Rachel. I would have to say, in light of all this, that, “All is real.”
Fin.
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