Blog #10, Racial Issues Throughout Works of Literature

Throughout the semester, our class has read many works of literature based on racial issues including Light in August, Coming of Age in Mississippi, Othello, and Greanleaf.

            In Light in August, race is the central issue in this novel.  Joe Christmas is not sure what exactly he is in terms of race; however, he has heard that he has “black blood” in him.  By not knowing exactly what he is in term of race, affects his life completely because live depended on what race you were.  His supposedly “black blood” makes society treat him badly.  Racism in this novel takes place when it comes to how African Americans are treated.  When Christmas was being hunted down by Percy Grimm at the end of the novel, Reverend Hightower tried to explain to Grimm that Christmas was with him the night of Ms. Burden’s death.  However, Grimm did not listen and was extremely brutal with Christmas’ death so he’ll “let the white women alone, even in hell” (464).

            Coming of Age in Mississippi was another story with racial issues as the central part of it.  Anne Moody faces segregation at a young age when she sees her white friends in a movie theatre.  Not knowing any better, Anne and her siblings ran to see their friends in the white section of the movie theatre; however, because of what they did, they are scolded by their mother and are dragged out of the movie theatre.  This incident opens her eyes towards the differences between skin colors.  Racism is also very intense during this time.  Mrs. Burke in the story treats Anne horribly and she basically attacks her younger brother who she blamed for stealing her coin purse when she accidently misplaced it.  Just like in Light in August, the majority of violence that happened occurred when African Americans disrespected white people or “over stepped” their boundaries. 

            In the play Othello, Othello is seen as an outsider because of his appearance. However, Othello seems to be neither, “What a full fortune does the thicklips owe, if he can carry’t thus!” (503). This reference suggests that Othello is a dark-skinned man.  Throughout the play, Iago, the antagonist, plays off this insecurity when talking of Othello and Desdemona’s relationship claiming Desdemona may want a man similar to herself. 

            In Greenleaf, Ms. May is a racist woman, “Get away from here, Sir!” and in a second muttered, “Some nigger’s scrub bull” (25).  She also treats Mr. Greenleaf harshly when he does not do something the way she wants it done.

            The common theme of race throughout these works of literature has shown me how badly African Americans were treated in the past.  It is horrible to see how people were treated just because of their skin color.  However because of this treatment, it allowed African Americans to stand up for themselves and get the rights they deserved in this country.  It shows that African Americans are strong people to go through what they did and to strive hard to obtain their rights.

Blog #9, Joe Christmas

In Light in August by William Faulkner, Joe Christmas is a character that is very troubled due to his upbringing.  Because of his abused, horrible upbringing, his behavior is violent especially towards women. Orphaned as a baby, Christmas is raised in an orphanage until Mr. McEachern adopts him.  Growing up, McEachern teaches Christmas about things such as the importance of religion and the amount of a hard earned dollar; however, he does not teach him about women.  So he learns from his group of guy friends, “ “They all want to,” he told the others.  “But sometimes they cant”” (185).  Mrs. McEachern tries to nurture him and be the mother figure in his life, but because of Mr. McEachern’s power in the household it has no affect on Christmas and ultimately he rejects her affection as a mother.

His behavior is also due to his racial identity.  Christmas does not know who exactly he is in terms of race because he never knew who his real parents are.  Throughout the novel, it is referred that he had a parent that was “part nigger” (254).  Christmas still does not exactly know if it’s true or not.  However, because a part of him has “black blood” in him, it affects not only him psychologically, but also realistically.  If he reveals his heritage, women would not want him and he would be treated completely differently.  Not knowing his racial identity affects him completely because during this time period, race is everything.  How someone is treated to where someone could live depended on race.  Since Christmas really does not know what he is exactly, his supposedly “black blood” makes society treat him badly.

Up to this point, Christmas has dealt with a huge amount of rejection from people.  Even the prostitute he was seeing, Bobbie, refuses to marry him after he proposes.  Because of his upbringing, Christmas does not know how to have a relationship with women at all unless it is purely physical.  If the relationship tries to become something more, he becomes scared and even abusive. 

Blog #8, "A Rose for Emily"

In “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, Southern Gothic, modernity vs. tradition, and gender issues happen within this short story along with a small racial issues that are noticeable.  Instead of the Gothic literature as a whole, Southern Gothic occurs because of the location in the South and because of the grotesque element that also takes place that takes on a more realistic value than a supernatural one like vampires, etc.  Instead, it shows how an individual, Miss Emily, is dealing with a society that is changing right in front of her eyes and the suffering she is going through.  This also ties in with the modernity vs. tradition issue.  Miss Emily struggles to keep up with her society rapidly changing to a more modern society.  For example, the modern mail service the town begins to set up.  Miss Emily refuses the mail service to put numbers on her house as an address.  To me, it seems like she is afraid of change and refuses to have any part in it.  Faulkner also used the Southern Gothic style of writing by making Emily the “damsel in distress” because of this fear of change and her refusing to at any cost. Gender issues occur when, “So when she got to be thirty and still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn’t have turned down all of her chances if they had really materialized” (2). This is a gender related issue because in the past when girls became what was considered women in their society, they were married off at a very young age.  However, when girls were not married by what middle age was, people would assume something was wrong with her.  Also, some of the ladies told the man that he would not be able to take care of the kitchen simply because he was a man.  So in this story both sides of gender related issues occurred. The small racial issues I witnessed throughout the story was the use of the “N” word.  Overall, William Faulkner wrote a short story to show that once a person has their mind set on something, nothing can change their minds and that sometimes their actions are controlled by what they truly believe in.

Blog #7: Gothic Literature

Gothic literature is typically known as involving horror; however, not everything in Gothic literature is directly involved with horror. In Gothic literature, tales revolve around mysterious castles/mansions, murder, treachery, curses, treachery, secrets, etc. It is believed that Gothic as a writing style was introduced by English writer/politician Horace Walpole with his story, The Castle of Otranto.  This story gained immense popularity and became a trendsetter for other authors to use the Gothic style in their stories.  Specifically, Southern gothic literature, part of the Gothic genre, includes topics such as mental disease, supernatural elements, and the grotesque; however, Southern gothic literature deals usually goes into characters with disturbed personalities, showing them as damaged or even delusional. 

The Petrified Man by Eudora Welty is focused on the weird, grotesque from the city of New Orleans, voodoo capital, to the freak show.  The petrified man is wanted for rape, which fits into the Gothic scene because of its cruel, violent intentions.  Greenleaf  by Flannery O’Connor also shows Southern Gothic characteristics.  For example, Mrs. Greenleaf’s faith healing and ritual give us a taste of a mystical, peculiar, and religious woman.  When Mrs. May is murdered by the Greenleaf’s bull, we also get a taste of the dark aspect of the gothic aspect in this short story, “One of his horns sank until it pierced her heart and the other curved to her side and held her in an unbreakable grip” (52).  This also represents the grotesque that surrounds murder in the Southern Gothic literature.  These short stories show their audience that the Gothic writing style does not have to involve things like vampires to be considered Gothic literature.

References:

Southern Gothic 

Gothic Literature

Lies For The Greater Good, Blog #6

Marlow tells Kurtz’s fiancée that his last words were her name, which of course is not true.  It seems Marlow tells Kurtz’s fiancée this to ensure that Kurtz really did love her, even though Kurtz was barely considered about her.  Also, Marlow saw how badly Kurtz’s fiancée was still mourning, as if he had died yesterday.  “But while we were still shaking hands, such a look of awful desolation came upon her face that I perceived she was one of those creatures that are not the playthings of Time.  For her he had died only yesterday” (332).  Just one look upon Kurtz’s fiancée made Marlow see how much Kurtz meant to her, which made him lie to her in the first place.  He did it to make her feel better and to prove to her that Kurtz really did care for her even in his last moments.  Although in reality, Kurtz seemed to be the type of man who just used women.

Ultimately, he was trying to portray Kurtz as the perfect person she fell in love with to help her during her grieving instead of the corrupt man he really was.  “But with every word spoken the room was growing darker, and only her forehead, smooth and white, remained illuminated by the inextinguishable light of belief and love” (332).  Marlow really did not want Kurtz’s fiancée to know what Kurtz had really done while he was away.  Marlow wanted her to still picture him as the great gentleman she fell in love with.  “Men looked up to him, -his goodness shone in every act”(334).  In reality, Kurtz was living a very corrupt life even in his last hours of life.

What Marlow tells Kurtz’s fiancée falls into the themes of women and isolation in Heart of Darkness we discussed in class.  During this time period, women were not considered important to men.  They were considered to be possessions more than anything. In the novel, Kurtz lacked compassion, which was considered a female trait. Without compassion, qualities such as greed take over. Also, Kurtz openly cheated on his fiancée regardless of his relationship with her which showed he did not feel any emotional compassion towards her.  The theme of isolation also seems to fit in with these lies because Kurtz had a lack of emotional attachment even though he had his fiancée.  Also, he was only interested in himself even though others, like his fiancée, cared about him.

Heart of Darkness, Blog #5

Some of the characteristics that describe a psychological novel are flashbacks, the psychological aspect of the characters within the story or a struggle within a character’s own psyche, the setting, and the story itself going into a great detail, even on the smallest aspect of the story.  Heart of Darkness is a psychological novel and within the reading the first two sections of this novel, Maslow has already began to use flashbacks to tell his story.  Maslow as a character seems like a very intelligent man; however, his past seems like is weighing him down.  Maslow has seen a lot of things in his life, some not as good as the others; for example, when Maslow witnesses a dying group of native workers on his journey down the African coast. “They were dying slowly- it was very clear.  They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now, -nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom” (279).  He basically gets to see first-hand how colonizers are taking over and either disregarding the natives or making them their slaves in order to prosper in this land.  This also makes the setting seem gloomy and depressing as natives' lifes are being taken over by colonizers.

The effects of colonialism on both the colonizers and those who are being colonized are quite different.  The colonizers are basically the people who are allowed to make the decisions on what is going to happen and if they have to, take the people who are being colonized as workers for themselves or slaves.  The people who are being colonized remind me of slaves in their own home.  They are being abused and the colonizers basically have complete control over what is going to happen to them, whether or not they will survive to see the next day or not.  To me, colonization portrayed so far in this novel seems to be very negative towards the people being colonized.  The colonizers are portrayed as selfish, greedy people while the natives are receiving the worse end of the deal by becoming prisoners. 

Villians

Evil, in my opinion, is doing something that goes against the values we have been taught and destroying something or someone in the process.  For example in some countries, people may cut off someone’s finger(s) if they are caught stealing.  To Americans, that is seen as evil and wrong because we do not practice that belief.  Evil can also be taking advantage of people to gain what one desires.  Iago is considered evil in Othello, and in The Little Mermaid, Ursula is the evil, antagonist.  Ursula is the sea witch who “helps” poor, unfortunate mermaids to ultimately achieve her goals.  Her ultimate goal is to take over Atlantica and become Queen; however, King Triton is in her way.  She comes up with a plan to become Queen through Triton’s youngest daughter, Ariel, who has fallen in love with a human, Prince Eric. She uses this information to bargain with Ariel.  Ursula tells Ariel she can turn her human for three days and within three days she must get Prince Eric to kiss her.  If she can, she will remain human permanently, but if she cannot she will become a mermaid again and be bound to Ursula forever.  All Ariel has to do in order to do this is give Ursula her voice.   Ursula then tricks Prince Eric into falling in love with her, using Ariel’s voice.  As Ursula obtains Ariel as her slave, she begins to bargain with Triton.  If he were to give her power to become Queen, she would let Ariel free.  Triton agrees and Ursula becomes Queen of Atlantis.

            Ultimately, Iago and Ursula are much alike.  They both use people to get what they desire and also seek revenge.  Iago wanted revenge when Othello did not promote him and Ursula wanted to seek revenge on Triton for banishing her from the kingdom.  These characters are “evil” because they messed with people’s emotions in order to get what they desired.  Ursula used Ariel’s love for Prince Eric and Triton’s love for his daughter to her advantage to gain what she wanted while Iago questioned Desdemona’s loyalty to Othello by planting seeds in Othello’s mind that she was cheating with his lieutenant, Cassio. 

            I believe blame should be put on both Iago and Othello, but most of it on Iago.  Iago was the one who deceived many people in order to get his revenge on Othello’s decision; however, Othello allowed Iago to make him believe Desdemona was having an affair.   However, Othello was an outsider and did not “fit in” easily due to his skin color and religious background so it is understandable that Othello would easily be influenced that someone was betraying him.  Most of the the blame should be put on Iago due to him planting seeds for everyone to fall into his trap.