thank you so much.Bill Rushby wrote:Reaction to "Friendly Persuasion":
The scenery in the movie is exceptionally good.
The plot, focused on "resistance or non-resistance,"reflects moral dilemmas Friends and other conscientious objectors actually faced during the Civil War and other wars.
The portrayal of Quaker faith and practice seems rather stereotyped and lacking in substance.
The carriage race was well done and probably reflects what sometimes happened.
Jessamyn West grew up among Gurneyite ("fast") Friends, in southern California I think.
Her experience with traditional Quaker culture was, I would speculate, very limited and probably superficial.
It would be like having someone steeped in General Conference Mennonitism attempt to portray Old Order life and culture in a novel or movie, probably accurate on the surface but lacking an "insider" feel.
Jessamyn West was one of Richard Nixon's cousins.
i now have more questions, not sure where to begin.
it’s strange to view this movie now, compared with how i understood it as a child.
as a child, “Quaker” was not significant to me. Samantha was!
it was family life depicted in familiar ways to me.
i was not familiar with women as pastors, but, that question didn’t really become something i thought about until years later. that is, men were pastors. i did not think of questioning it. (this was a movie. movies make up things.) more recently, i’ve read about it in even earliest Quaker history. i still don’t agree with it. but, it’s interesting to read about it in history.
watching the film now, it seems (a bit of a hodge podge) .. but, it attempts to address questions real people continue to struggle with. even on this forum.
i wonder if the movie had not been made, what would have come of the book?
i’ve now read, J West was born in Indiana, and, her writings were based on close family members/elders. these would have been in Indiana, or migrants to Indiana, probably in Civil War times?
that she had TB, was not expected to survive. this can be significant. children that survive hardships learn to appreciate life in different ways. because of her illness, she may have spent much more time with her elders, in their care. she may have written, being able to? maybe without a lot of choice?
1950’s southern california and hollywood definitely impact the movie.
not as it would today. evenso. “everything changes everything,” i was once told by a wise one.
as inaccurate or imaginative as it was, i can’t imagine present hollywood touching it for content.
today’s hollywood would not allow the Reb soldiers to ransack the Birdwell farm without accosting Eliza and the children; nor would they allow Mattie and the Union soldier to have an innocent courtship.
the relationships reflect how, in the Civil War, people were conflicted, close families were conflicted within. individuals struggled within. “brothers fighting brothers, cousins fighting cousins,” i heard my mother grieve these words often, praying, “please, never again!”
she wasn’t born until 1917, but, i believe she carried family accounts with her .. i only found out after she died, there were Quakers on her father’s side. she knew more than she spoke about. my parents hated war. but were not formally CO. they did not speak against CO’s. any talk of war was somber.
have you read West’s other books? i found this list:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/1 ... samyn_West
they appear to be a mix of history and fiction. there may be some variation (?)
i’m not sure if i knew of the J West/Nixon connection. but, it seems familiar.
i may have heard of it at sometime.
do you know of which Quakers Nixon was part, or came from?
this thread is not about J West. but, a bunny trail is ok.
That is part of what I meant when I spoke of stereotyping Quaker faith and history.
