Word: vii
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...many states at the turn of the century to protect the "weaker" sex from harsh working conditions. Now a growing band of lawyers argue that if the laws are used to bar women who want such work, the result is precisely the kind of discrimination forbidden by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Although the ban on sex discrimination was added to that law as a wry joke by Southern Congressmen opposing civil rights for blacks, complaints involving women now make up nearly one-quarter of those brought to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission...
...have to be kidding. The folder tells us majestically that Chauncey Winston Minot VII was director of this, president of that...etc...etc., but not where they stand on anything. The alumni think they're reading somebody's resume, mark their X's...and lo and behold...two-thirds of Harvard's ruling body has sideburns down to their knees...
...real life (his creditors, his landlady, his crude Irish friend, the tottery old scrubwoman Agnes) become suddenly transformed by his fantastic vainglory. There must have been some malice in Dorothy's transformation of her favorite farmhands into a scarecrow, a tinman and a lion. Similarly, Rolfe as Pope Hadrian VII can launch heroic reforms in the Church, patronize innocent Agnes with her pickled onions and her rooming house, and (last but not least) become a glorious martyr. Rolfe is assassinated by Jeremiah Sant, the fiery Ulsterman who aids Mrs. Crowe the landlady in blackmail schemes. His dream rounds...
...seriousness or detail in the depiction of Rolfe's neuroses, but simply a more clear-cut emphasis on them. Rolfe no doubt took himself seriously. But the answer is not to join him in self-glorification any more then to laugh his "sickness" away (the fairy-tale ploy). Hadrian VII could have used a bit more malevolence without slipping into the Swopian mire...
What seemed lacking in Hadrian VII was a clear resolve to explore Rolfe's personality. Though we can readily laugh at what he has imagined, we are confused by a suspicion that Rolfe the man must have been more complex and brilliant than he comes across in his own fantasy. To present the man and his fantasy in one play, something had to go and it was not humor but psychological depth...