Is it Who or Whom?

IS IT WHO OR WHOM?

BY

DAVID ARTHUR WALTERS


"You must know your history to know who you are," said a rabbi attending on old folks home in South Beach.

History is a mistake as far as I am concerned at the moment.

"Maybe I shall be glad to die for what a miserable history I've had," I said to my secret self when I reflected on my past, although I must admit that I had some good times and did not know it at the time.

"Am I to blame for what happened to me or what I did? Is this why people get confused about the use of 'who' and 'whom'?"

Whom has become a rare form even where grammar strictly requires it (sic), claims my textbook, as if "grammar" were a person who requires us to speak in certain ways.

Should one more properly ask, "Whom am I?", that is, one that happens to be, as if one were an object made by circumstances, rather than, "Who am I?" as if one has a free will and therefore makes one self?

Not that anyone cares about me, busy as they are attending to whom they are. Or is it who they are?

Who cares who or whom I am? An honest woman said she had no respect for me at all, and did not want to hear me talk about my interests unless the main subject was her.

At least there is some little hope for me if what a philosopher said is true, that one cannot fairly judge if a man was good or bad until he is dead already. Maybe I shall save the world and be redeemed.

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