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"Arcadia, My Arcadia: My Comments"
By Thomas Wilkes
Dr. Nicholas D. Kokonis' book, Arcadia, My Arcadia, is a work of fiction based on the life experiences of the author. Whether this makes the author an autobiographer acutely aware that reality is subjective, or a novelist willing to admit that all fiction is based on one's life experiences, is open to conjecture.
Arcadia, My Arcadia is a rags to riches story in the tradition of Horatio Alger. In this inspirational tale we follow the protagonist, Angelos Vlahos, through his trials and tribulations, from his entrance exam for high school, to the moment his plane takes off for America.
We meet Angelos as he walks to the local high school to take his entrance exam with a hole in his shoe and a thorn in the sole of his foot. A comparison can be made to Aesop's fable of "Androcles and the Lion". If the academic authorities would be so kind as to remove the thorn of ignorance from Angelos' soul, he would be willing to swear undying gratitude for the opportunity to better himself intellectually and his family financially. | 
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During his entrance exam, it is revealed that Angelos' last name "Vlahos" is a Greek word for "villager". The examiner reveals his prejudice against those of the rural class. This class distinction has been with us since the invention of the city. Angelos' teacher of ancient civilizations makes a point of informing him that all great civilizations began in cities and that "There are no traces of urban life in the villages. Nothing worthy can come out of uncivilized places. Our ancestors acknowledged the fact that man is a political animal and that only in a polis, and urban community, can civilization flourish."
This bias against those who live in rural areas is evident in many cultures throughout history. The word pagan now refers to those who are not Christian, but was originally derived from the Latin word pagani, a derogatory term used to describe those who didn't live in the city and therefore were not cosmopolitan or sophisticated. The word barbarian was an unflattering Latin word derived from the way that "uncivilized" speech sounded like "buh buh" to the cultured ears of the civilized Romans. By giving the protagonist this name, the author invites us to identify with Angelos as a representative of the underclass, and encouraging anyone who has ever felt relegated to the underclass to cheer along his progress.
Angelos learns his place on the social spectrum from his mother, who divides the world into "eaters" and those who are eaten. She tells him:
"The eaters place themselves apart from the rest of the world. They only look after their own interests. They help other eaters win, and us poor people lose. I hope you never need any of them, my child. A poor man without influence can do nothing."
This admonition, and his subsequent treatment at the hands of the students who come from the town, color his perceptions of all those he comes into contact with throughout the rest of the story, as he classifies them into their respective categories.
According to Erikson's theory of social development, at the beginning of the book Angelos is on the cusp of two stages. While he had mastered the schoolwork at his village school and achieved competence, he suffers a setback on his journey to adolescence when his social environment changes and suddenly he feels overwhelmed by feelings of inferiority, but his burning desire to improve his family's lot in life drives him onward in the face of adversity:
"Angelos tried to comfort himself in the knowledge that he possessed a purpose: to get out of his villages dusty poverty. Believing that he was part of something significant, he worked himself with a seizure of purpose every day. He felt consumed by the need to become adequate in his new world and be in control of his situation, relying on the same principle that had guided Odysseus when he resolved to tie himself to the mast."
The chronic stress arising from this unresolved conflict, coupled with the acute stress he suffers as a result of the family horse falling down the well and the death of his village schoolteacher, keeps his sympathetic nervous system humming along at an artificially inflated speed. He develops facial tics and uncontrollable blinking, he is able to get by on less food because his digestive system is depressed, he suffers from insomnia, and his immune system becomes compromised, allowing a simple cold to become full blown pneumonia.
By the end of his first semester, Angelos' hard work and dedication is beginning to pay off and he starts to receive positive reinforcement for his studious ways in the form of good grades. As he becomes confident of his competence, some of his stress recedes and he is free to allow his identity to begin to crystallize.
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If we were to analyze Angelos' dedication to his study habits in terms of operant conditioning, we would classify his reduced anxiety when he knows he has mastered the material as negative reinforcement. The unpleasant stimulus of gut gnawing tension is temporarily removed. When he begins to receive good grades for his efforts he is receiving positive reinforcement. Angelos and his family are so poor that they are living a hand to mouth existence, which means that most of their waking life is spent procuring enough food to keep body and soul together. Their primary reinforcement are food and shelter. | 
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While human beings differ from lower animals in that humans can and will forgo primary reinforcement for an opportunity to fulfill their spiritual and philosophic needs, extreme poverty brings humans perilously close to the level of animals. "The last thing we need in this house is more expenses," she continued, as if she hadn't heard her husband's question. "Besides, letters are for those who live in large houses and eat meat regularly and have fine clothes. We can hardly keep our heads above water! Don't you see I cannot even get a cup of milk from our nanny goat? Let's buy him a few goats and have him tend them."
Thus, the family's decision to divert precious resources from food production to send their son to school in the hope that their investment will eventually pay off is not an easy decision to make and is an excellent example of delayed gratification.
If we examine Angelos' moral development in comparison to Kohlberg's scale of moral development, we find that at the beginning of the book Angelos has progressed past the pre-conventional scale and is firmly ensconced in the conventional morality stage. "He hoped that God would not, in his infinite goodness, willfully deny the future of a boy who prayed on his knees every morning and every night, and thanked Him for every slice of bread. What he expected was not a miracle, or a manifestation of the divine powers, but simply justice."
A young child in the pre-conventional stage of morality does good deeds with the expectation that they will be concretely rewarded, that God will respond to his prayers with divine intervention and flashy miracles. A person who has progressed to the stage of conventional morality hopes that the deck isn't stacked against him and that blind Justice doesn't have a thumb on the scales, but would continue to follow the cultural norms even if they were told that they were.
As Angelos gets older, he progresses to the stage of post-conventional morality. Shaped in part by his mother's belief that the world is divided into two types of people, the "eaters" and their prey, he comes to the realization that the virtues that his culture espouses are a mechanism by which the "eaters" maintain the status quo. As the priest preaches:
"Man was born to suffer. In this world all material goods are perishable, only one thing is constant, the secret of life, and that secret is suffering. Yes, suffering. But we suffer for a reason. Our souls are purified through what we endure and rise to heaven. Suffering ennobles us. What is life but suffering and humility? It is through suffering that that we shall find salvation."
Listening to the sermon Angelo realizes that he is no longer the unquestioning believer he once was. He thinks to himself:
"What does he know about poverty? If poverty is so noble, why do bishops have servants and housemaids? Why do priests keep their bellies so big? He couldn't fathom that God had fixed a place like hell because he loved his children so much. No, he couldn't accept voluntary suffering as a way to salvation. He couldn't see how God, if He was as good and loving as the Bible said, would want His creation to go without food, without clothes, without a place in the sun He created. Angelo had doubts about "God's wrath" ever since serving as Papa Euthymios' altar boy and seeing that black LEDGER. For some time now the wall mural in his village church, with the pits of fire and their raging flames ready to consume the sinner, had lost much of its appeal to him. With a God like that on one side and a Hell like that on the other, he now wondered if he shouldn't put faith in himself instead."
This quote seems to embody the transition to a post-conventional morality.
Arcadia, My Arcadia is more than an inspirational story extolling the virtues of hard work and self-reliance. It is also a coming of age story that tugs at the heart strings and enables one to compare and contrast with one's own transition to manhood. I would recommend it to anyone wishing to learn more about the experiences of those who immigrated to this country.
Thomas Wilkes
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