Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary with the Bard
Laura Bates, 2013
Sourcebooks
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781402273148
Summary
While he was trying to break out of prison, she was trying to break in.
Shakespeare professor and prison volunteer Laura Bates thought she had seen it all. That is, until she decided to teach Shakespeare in a place the bard had never been before—supermax solitary confinement.
In this unwelcoming place, surrounded by inmates known as the worst of the worst, is Larry Newton. A convicted murderer with several escape attempts under his belt and a brilliantly agile mind on his shoulders, Larry was trying to break out of prison at the same time Laura was fighting to get her program started behind bars.
Thus begins the most unlikely of friendships, one bonded by Shakespeare and lasting years—a friendship that, in the end, would save more than one life. (From the publisher.)
Watch Laura Bates on TED
Listen to Laura Bates on NPR
Author Bio
• Birth—1957
• Raised—state of Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., Columbia College, Chicago; M.A., Northeastern
Illinois University; Ph.D., Univeristy of Chicago
• Currently—lives in Terre Haute, Indiana
Laura Bates is a professor of English at Indiana State University, where she has taught courses on Shakespeare for the past fifteen years to students on campus and in prison.
Bates earned her B.A. degree from Columbia College in Chicago and her M.A. at Northeastern Illinois Univeristy. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in Comparative Literature, with a focus on Shakespeare studies.
For more than 25 years she has worked in prisons as a volunteer and as a professor. She created the world’s first Shakespeare program in supermax—the long-term solitary confinement unit. Her work has been featured in local and national media, including two segments on MSNBC-TV’s Lock Up. She is the author of Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary with the Bard (2013). Happily married for nearly thirty years, she and her husband Allan Bates, a retired professor and playwright, live in Indiana. (Adapted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Indiana State literature professor Bates details her remarkable work teaching Shakespeare to inmates, an experience that proved momentous for both teacher and students....[who]discuss and dissect themes of revenge, criminality, honor, and love—from Macbeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Othello, among others. Opening the mind's prison proves enormously gratifying, not to mention effective, for Bates as she offers the prisoners an alternative to frustrated violence. Her brave, groundbreaking work continues to be closely watched and modeled.
Publishers Weekly
From breaking out to breaking through, that’s what reading Shakespeare did for Indiana federal prison inmate Larry Newton, who was locked in solitary confinement for more than 10 years.... The journey he makes and the impact it has on Bates herself combine to form a powerful testament to how Shakespeare continues to speak to contemporary readers in all sorts of circumstances.
Booklist
The unorthodox bonding of a Shakespeare instructor and a convicted murderer. Beginning in 2003, English professor Bates (Indiana State Univ.) began an inaugural group-study program in a solitary confinement prison space.... The author emerges as a selfless tutor dedicated to education without reservation, and she fought hard to educate Newton and other surprisingly charismatic inmates, whom she profiles with a dignified mixture of pride and humanitarianism. The 10 years spent in supermax became a transformative journey for students and teacher alike. An eye-opening study reiterating the perennial power of books, self-discipline and the Bard of Avon.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently debating the constitutionality of capital punishment and life without parole for juvenile offenders. What is your opinion? Do you think that Larry, who came to prison at 17, should spend the rest of his life behind bars?|
2. What kinds of conditions are appropriate for violent offenders? Do you agree that long-term solitary confinement is, as judged by Human Rights Watch, inhumane? What about solitary confinement for juveniles, as Larry experienced starting at the age of ten, described in Chapter 15 (“Supermax Kid”)?
3. Is rehabilitation possible? What evidence can prove a prisoner’s rehabilitation? Do you think that Larry is rehabilitated?
4. Research has shown that higher education results in lowered recidivism and is, therefore, cost-efficient use of tax dollars: it is cheaper to educate than to incarcerate. But are prisoners deserving of higher education? Should their education be funded by tax dollars or by the prisoners themselves…or some other way? Should all prisoners have this opportunity, including lifers?
5. A teacher’s ultimate accomplishment is when his or her student becomes a teacher, passing on the lessons learned. What lessons did Larry learn from Dr. Bates? Do you think that he was a good teacher in prison—and do you believe that he would be a good teacher in society if given the chance?
6. Would most husbands be as supportive of their wife’s prison work as Allan was? Why or why not? Would you support such work done by your own spouse?
7. In what ways was the work of Dr. Bates with prisoners grounded in her parents’ experiences as war refugees and immigrants? Do you think, as she does, that they would have approved of her work? Why or why not? Was she right to keep it a secret from them?
8. Both Larry and Dr. Bates accepted a number of challenges in their work. What are some of these challenges—and how did they face them?
9. “This prison doesn’t matter,” says Larry referring to the prison of concrete and steel. Breaking out of habitual patterns of self-destructive thinking can be more damaging and more difficult to break out of. How did Larry break those chains, with the help of Shakespeare?
10. Larry feels that we create our own personal prisons, and the author has identified a few of hers throughout the book. Do you feel that they both successfully overcame their own prisons?
11. Every one of the prisoners in the Shakespeare group said that he wanted to make a positive contribution to society despite his transgressions. What kinds of contributions are prisoners uniquely able to provide?
12. Macbeth said that he dared not to look on it (his murder) again, but Larry did. The book states that getting convicted killers to look on their crime (i.e., to examine the reasons for the offense) is a key to keeping them from killing again. Why do you think that is so important?
13. Acknowledging responsibility for his crime—as Larry has done—is considered to be an essential ingredient for demonstrating rehabilitation. Why do you think that is so?
14. Look at the following three chapters and consider how you would have reacted.
Chapter 6 – Newton’s In
Chapter 25 – The Shower (Me)
Chapter 26 – All Hands On Deck
15. Think about the Shakespeare plays you have read (or read a new one) and consider the ways in which you can find personal relevance in the four-hundred-year-old text. Do one, or more, of the characters have any traits that you have? Does he or she face a challenge that you have faced? Are there relationships among two or more of the characters that are similar in some ways to your own relationships?
16. What are your own personal prisons—and how can you overcome them?
(Questions issued by publisher.)