Sethe's Crime. Maybe.

Reading about the truth of the crawling already? baby's death (finally) came as a bit of a shock. It made me see Sethe differently, although not quite as differently as one might think after hearing that she murdered her baby daughter. The circumstances surrounding the murder made me feel more pity for Sethe, rather than see her as conniving and evil. In fact, I felt like this was the scene in which we as readers were able to understand Sethe the best. Having not had much of the novel from her point of view, it was she committed this act of love and desperation that we were most able to get inside her head and understand what the heck is going on with her. Up until this point, I saw Sethe as a pretty warm, open and friendly person, though I knew she a dark past. It was very confusing trying to figure out how these two aspects of her character fit together, and the conclusion that I came to was that her friendly personality was a mask for a crazed maniac that was bottled up in her innards. But it turned out to be almost the opposite: her past actions proved her to be more loving than she ever acted after The Misery. In all honesty, her split-second decision to protect her children at all costs was extremely impressive, if unexpected in the interpretation of "protection." But I see her point of view. Those children would never have a hope of escaping Schoolteacher's cruelty once they were in his grasp, because there was something about them that he could not forgive: they must have injured his pride by successfully escaping. He must have wanted them back at all costs. I feel that, were they to return to Sweet Home he would be harder on them than the slaves who were used to the "light touch" of the Garners.

Yet, making such a decision must have been incredibly difficult. In a way, Sethe is kind of a hero. She was able to complete an utterly self-sacrificing and altruistic act, and decide to do so in a split second without thinking twice about what it would do to her emotionally, and how it would affect her for the rest of her life. She suffered as a result: her baby was gone, and she would be forever ostracized by those who knew the truth. Yet, even through this, I think I respect her, because she is a very "no regrets" kind of person. She feels no guilt over what she did, and would do it again. It. Cutting off her two-year-old daughter's head. That's hard to say. But she would do it again. It saved her other children and their freedom, and no one would ever be able to touch Beloved. She loved those babies so much that she make damn sure that no one would ever hurt them or break them the way they did her, the Pauls, Sixo, and especially Halle. If possible, reading this scene makes me like Sethe more than I ever did before, because I don't think many people would have the strength to do what she did. Of course, this is completely messing with my head because I am rooting for a baby-killer, but her circumstances left her no other option.

Run Mourner Run: Was Dean in the wrong? (Also what the heck does race have to do with this story?)

           In class we had a lively discussion, but we never really got a chance to debate what to me seemed like one of the most crucial questions: Was Dean wrong to have slept with Ray? The obvious answer would be yes--he put on a two-faced act and ended up betraying the person he loved by aiding and abetting blackmail. He felt enormously guilty after the fact, shown when he lays in bed and just contemplates everything he did and how it turned out so badly. And, in the end he never makes too much of a fuss about not getting the money and promotion for Terrell because he both realizes that he was foolish to believe that Terrell would ever be that outlandishly generous, while also feeling (I believe) like he deserved what he got for treating Ray the way he did.

 

            But did he? Breaking this issue down, I can't help but notice that this is a prime example of "desperate times call for desperate measures" as his mother was sick, there were bills piling up, and no food. An offer such as Percy Terrell's must have sparked a glimmer of hope in him that he would have done anything to keep. After all, Terrell's request must not have been so outrageous to a boy (excuse me-- 23 year old "man") who is familiar with selling himself. This was just one more client; only this was different because the purpose of Dean's future encounter with Ray was to have a malicious intent, thanks to Terrell. This really was different--something to legitimately feel guilty over. Yes, Dean only met with Ray initially to seduce him for relatively dark purposes (at least on Terrell's end, because Dean only needed money: not a malignant hope). But, after just one short conversation, Dean fell in love with Ray, attracted to not only his body but his slightly pretentious intelligence and worldliness--the complete opposite of the "white trash" that Dean sees himself as. So from that point of view, could Dean having sex with Ray be just the innocent hookup of a smitten young man? He all but forgot the reason behind it (though he never knew the full extent of Percy's motives) and merely enjoyed all of the time that he was able to spend with Ray before the catastrophe of the revealed plot occurred. I don't blame him, but I can see how Ray would be offended that he seemed a double agent. 

           

            On another note, I think race is a significant factor in this story, which can be seen as the motive for the entire plot. Terrell's reasons for wanting to blackmail Ray are certainly sketchy and transparently in only his own interest, as he wouldn't want any competing landowners. Yet judging by his violent and prejudice tendencies towards Dean, I would guess that Percy Terrell is something along the lines of a raging racist. The feelings he has towards African Americans do not allow for any black person to come close to being his superior, and therefore a power struggle ensues. By getting one of his henchmen into bed with Ray (or at least have it done on his terms) Terrell gets as close emotionally to raping Ray as he can, by essentially having this sort of sexual power over him.

           

            This ties back to Dean’s guilt, because I think he realizes the implications of what he has done when he is lying in bed thinking about Ray and knowing that it is too late. But, its unfortunate (though realistic) that he never got to explain the situation to Ray, who had to be hurting while leading his double life.

"Style Wars" Reactions

"Style Wars" was the source of a lot of controversy in my day today. As a self-proclaimed artist, I fully hold the position that graffiti ultimately does no one harm, and should therefore be left alone. I am not saying legalize it, but I just do not see the problem with it. In my view, there are three types of graffiti: murals, tags, and offensive language. Graffiti murals are some of the most expressive and colorful paintings done in modern art, and can be provocative, rebellious, and generally make things more beautiful and interesting. They can spice up a dirty street corner or an old rusty subway car, and I take umbrage with anyone who uses the word "defacing" when describing these. Tags, while maybe not being the prettiest or most interesting, are still a part of a subculture that most people ignore on a regular basis because they don't have much money and zilch opportunities but that should be heard. I think it is extremely elitist and pretentious to deprive people of a chance to make their mark on the world and maybe do something with their lives when some might not have much other chance to.  Offensive language and derogatory slurs may be put up along with tags and murals, but seriously, if this is the reason people want to get rid of graffiti then they might as well not stick their heads out of the door in the morning or listen to music or read the newspaper because nasty things are everywhere and censorship of an art form really wont change that much.

Not only is graffiti colorful and expressive, but it can also provide social commentary. The vigilante artist Banksy is considered one of the most prominent of these opinionated graffiti artists, who has murals around the world that depict things from memorable movie scenes to a young girl patting down an Israeli soldier. Banksy's identity is still unknown today, though he is apparently being sought by the authorities to pay for his uncensored street art. This is graffiti like any other, in fact it may even be uglier than the murals put up by street artists on subways, but unlike the sometimes scribbly tags or distinctive murals which are associated with African American culture, these, having an obvious meaning to people outside of "the know" are generally met with more enthusiasm. I think that this attitude is rather stupid, because in a way it is prejudice: people automatically dislike what they do not understand. 

 Another example of this phenomenon is on the Berlin Wall: after 1989, what remained of the wall was decorated by local artists who visually commented on the political situation. One of the more famous of these murals include an enormous blue car crashing through the wall, symbolizing the destruction of the division of the city. This is a double-sided mural; the back end of the car is shown on the East Berlin side of the wall. Another depicts a mash of faces upside down and sideways, huddled together but very intricate and colorful. This mural stretches on and on, and is really an amazing piece.

My bedroom! Not quite done yet though.

 I love the idea of graffiti, and though I know that I will never be a part of that subculture or fully understand the reasons that they put their art up, the methods of doing it and the risks involved, simply because I was born very privileged, I still would love to put up a mural somewhere one day, just to support the idea of graffiti and maybe try and stop every attack that calls it "ugly" and "defacing public property." I had the exact same discussion with my parents that we had in class, and they took the more conservative view for once in their lives which completely surprised me. They even used the exact same phrase: "How would you like it if someone our an enormous mural on our house?" I said bring it, because I have already done one (halfway anyways) in my bedroom and I am itching to start another, so they better fear for our front porch in the middle of the night...

Image sources: 

subway: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Rome_subway_graffiti.jpg

Banksy: http://www.toptenz.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/17banksyES_468x606.jpg

Berlin wall: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5009/5343443481_63e7f0ef3f.jpg

Gunnar is one odd bloke

         Gunnar Kaufman: affectionate son and brother, gang member, basketball star, poet, messiah, how can one person embody so many personas? This is one character that it is almost impossible not to like throughout the novel, even after he inadvertently convinces hundreds of people to commit suicide and shows no remorse for doing so. But his voice, with varying tones from "pardon me old bean" to "whadda sunovabitch"who can switch from jocular to intellectual to "hood" and back again four times in one sentence, is entrancing. I do indeed believe that this voice is ultimately what leads him to be the radical revolutionary figure that he is in the final chapter. Because this guy really just does not think like your everyday person on the street.

         I mean first of all, he was raised by some stunningly unique characters: a mother who can stuff a condom up her nose at the dinner table and say "Ta-da!" (one of the more staying anecdotes) and a father who may be a little like Bledsoe in that he seems ashamed that he is black, and therefore spends his days arresting other black people and palling with the white officers, imitating their tactics of beating young black men without cause. And perhaps this upbringing, from his unique role in Santa Monica environment to a temporarily solitary existence in Hillside before befriending the ultimate hipster, Mr. Nicholas Scoby, and once again becoming an idol. Something about Gunnar, (and I suspect that it had something to do with the way he talked) drew everyone to him. Now, unlike most teenage males who with this amount of attention would have an ego big enough to have a house of its own, Gunnar seems almost ashamed of his popularity, like he did not think he deserved it. In class someone brought up the idea that this was because he did not have to work at basketball like he did for poetry: his actual passion. But I think Gunnar would have been known widely even without his mad hops. And I think that one of the reasons he was so uncomfortable with all of the constant attention on him was for the reason he freely admitted: "I really don't give a fuck." Sure, he has opinions, but most of them concern only his own feelings and actions. For a prophet-messiah-black Jesus-like character he sure is self absorbed. But again, that is part of his appeal. He doesn't directly tell anyone to do anything, he's merely spit-balling ideas for himself.

        One part of the novel that sort of epitomized Gunnar's facetious and lovable weirdness for me was that he actually accepted Yoshiko into his life. I seriously thought Psycho Loco was completely kidding in an initiation/older brother "We need to get you laid" kind of way, and then whaddaya know, he has gone and actually ordered and paid for a human being on the black market. Now of course we expect Gunnar to refuse her because he's not in love with her, it's immoral, blah blah blah. Or maybe he'll accept her, but never really talk to her and have her stay in the background. But once again he utterly stunned me when he falls for this "Hot Mama-San of the Orient" who reminds him of his mother and has an odd fascination with his butt.

      But the more weirdness that falls out of this guy's words and actions, the more I love him as character. He has a charisma that kind of makes him irresistibly likeable, and I think this is what leads him to his final uprising. Or is it a downfall? I mean, he probably is going to die...
Yes, I am going to go with downfall. Because his final speech left me with a lot of questions, and if I were black I'm not sure I'd be willing to just down some suspicious grape Kool-Aid without asking any further questions. (More on this later).

Janie and The Color Purple

         Well I have no idea if any of you have ever read The Color Purple by Alice Walker, but she was the person who is quoted on the front of Their Eyes Were Watching God as saying "There is no book more important to me than this one." The funny thing is, I happened to be reading The Color Purple simultaneously and completely coincidentally. I was extremely enthralled at the odds. Anyway, reading both novels at the same time (though I haven't finished the Alice Walker yet) made me see some eerie similarities (also HUGE differences) between Celie and Janie. Their names are the first one because I kept getting them mixed up in my mind, but that is the most minor.

          Both Janie and Celie are exposed to difficult situations when they are very young (our age) but they handle their situations very differently. They are married off to people that they do not know well very suddenly, and for the good of other people: Janie's Nanny's peace of mind, and in Celie's case, to keep Mr. ------- from her young, smart, and beautiful sister Nettie. But while Logan Killicks and Mr. ------- react to their new wives similarly (a general lack of appreciation, though Mr. ------ goes much farther down this road than Killicks ever did--he also surpasses Joe Starks), Janie shows much more obvious strength and independence that Celie does initially. She walks out on Killicks because she knows what she wants. Celie, meanwhile, is stubborn and selfless, but her fiery streak takes more prodding to activate than Janie's. She was determinately placid for most of the novel (of what I have read so far) until she found all of Nettie's letters that Mr. ------ had been keeping from her to convince her that Nettie was dead. After a few death threats she was calmed temporarily by Shug, the only person besides Nettie that she ever loved, whereas if Janie were in the same situation I am not sure she would have been calmed. I think that this varying aspect of their personalities comes from their polar childhoods. Janie, raised by her Nanny and a companion to white children, was allowed to daydream and have an actual childhood, while Celie meanwhile was the matriarch of her large family for most of her childhood in addition to dealing with her sexually abusive father, whose actions suppressed her spirit for the longest time.

        A lot of what drives both of these characters is their need to be loved, and both find ways to make this happen, but the ways in which they go about it seem to embody their personalities. Janie, who has had man after her her entire life, had no issue finding someone to love her, but rather the right someone. Janie had to stick up for what she wanted when everyone around her mistrusted her judgment and her chosen partner, the much-younger Tea Cake. She had to fight to get what she wanted. Celie, on the other hand, had been told her entire life that she was ugly and stupid, once again took the more passive route and found love elsewhere than her marriage. Having heard stories of elusive and exotic Shug Avery, the love of Mr. -------'s life, she too was enamored with this figure, even when the wealthy singer showed her nothing contempt and hatred for stealing her man. Shug eventually did come to love Celie, her primary caretaker, and when they slept together Celie was genuinely happy for what was probably the first time in her life. She never submitted to others' idea that she was too ugly and stupid to be loved, and so she fought this notion her own way.

        I know that both of these characters are incredibly strong to survive what each went through and not be a vegetable, (Janie having to murder her husband; Celie being raped and impregnated by her father) but I still marvel at how different their strengths manifest. In a way, Celie is even stronger than Janie, because while Janie has some snap, Celie bore everything in silence. And the novel isn't even over yet.

Go Janie Go

            Janie, the protagonist of Their Eyes Were Watching God, represents a strong, straight-backed feminist character. This being the first novel that we have read in class this year that is both written by a woman and starring one as well, I really appreciate her strength compared to that of Bessie or the ever-seducing female members of Ellison's Brotherhood. Not only did she feel that she had the right to carve out her own fate when she left Logan Killicks, but she later changed even that decision by finally standing up to the insecure Joe Starks who once treated her so nicely. Mr. Starks is the man who promised her the world and more and made her a figure to be admired around town as the mayor's wife, isolated her from the entire town by painting her as this aloof, conceited woman. It seems as if he is doing this on purpose, not only to enure that others see them as a power couple, but to discourage anyone from befriending Janie, and thus keeping her reliant on him. He keeps her under a lock and key; no allowing her to speak her mind in social discussions on the sore porch, rather asking her to fetch him things, such as his black shoes, because according to Joe Starks, that is a woman's job. His control complex becomes even more obvious as they both age, and he makes continuous negative comments about her looks: putting her down so that he can feel better about his receding hairline and large saggy stomach.

           This all comes crashing down on him when it builds up to a breaking point for Janie, so that she can either retain an ounce of pride or submit to him entirely, and due to her strength she chooses the first option. Her comment of retaliation, which insulted a part of his anatomy that he formerly took pride in, had me as a reader egging her on and rooting for her entirely. In fact, this display of fiestiness reminded me very strongly of Zora Neale Hurston herself. It was not surprising to find a lot of herself in her character because there are obvious parallels between her life and Janie's, (such as both of them living in a tiny all-black town in Florida called Eatonville). In "Jump at the Sun" they mentioned that Zora could do tricks with the way she spoke, going from the accented, typically African American dialect to practically professorial English and back again. This is also evident in her novel, because the narration does exactly the same thing.

 There were some people who expressed the idea that because Janie disregarded "all" that Logan Killicks had done for her and ran off with Joe Starks, she was spoiled (thereby agreeing with Killicks). I disagree, mainly on the point that she never really agreed to marry him, and she wasn't happy there. Her life living in the back yard of a white family's house was not what you would call idyllic, but, like most girls of her age, she wasn't used to doing hard physical labor every day in addition to house chores. Her disgust for Logan may not have been entirely warranted on his half, but Janie deserved to be happy, and by her definition, not just her well-meaning Nanny's.

To anyone who thinks Janie is spoiled: when was the last time you worked all day behind a plow?

(Backtracking) The Blindness of Brother Jack

           I just discovered some symbolism from Invisible Man that I hadn't noticed the first time around, but if everyone else already did, then just humor me here. Brother Jack only has one eye. This could be referencing his "blindness" when it comes to the narrator. He doesn't really see the narrator as his own person, rather as a tool with excellent speaking skills and the right amount of pigment in his skin to use him to get some (controlled) amount of equality, (or at least keep up the front that that is what he wants). The narrator is totally invisible to Brother Jack just as he is to everyone else in the novel, but this conceited puffed-up dictator (of an "equality" organization--how ironic) literally cannot see him.
       
          So not only is Brother Jack blind, in a sense, but the narrator finds his habit of popping his eye out in a very Mad-Eye Moody way utterly repulsive. This is an addition to the outlandish and often grotesque images that Ellison enjoys throwing in to knock off any pretense of realism that the reader might have been coming in with.Because he discovers this right about the time that he sees the true nature of the Brotherhood's motives, this scene nicely accentuates his disgust for the inner workings of the organization. How graphic the descriptions of his gross empty eye socket are rounds off the feeling of disgust with a nice side-helping of nausea, just in case the readers weren't feeling quite as upset with the Brotherhood as the narrator was.

You're a crafty man, Ellison.