Someone Save Him

            One of the most entertaining characteristics of the human condition is this need to believe in something. There has to be something to put your faith in, that you believe can change things and right wrongs. For lots of people, such as the Reverend in Ernest J. Gaines’ novel A Lesson Before Dying that faith manifests itself in religion and God. But for those of us who are less inclined to blindly follow an invisible all-knowing entity of supreme power, such as Grant, there is school and education.
            Grant is a teacher. He is charged with saving Jefferson’s mind, “cause you the teacher,” (pg.123 Gaines), to turn this child into a man before he must face the scariest day of his short life. Grant has to make Jefferson see himself as a man, not a beast. He approaches this in a secular way, treating him as a grown man, not lying to him or giving him false hope, but by being honest and straightforward. By making him write and think instead of just wallow in his predicament and moving him towards more constructive habits. Grant treats him like a worthwhile individual and helps Jefferson see himself as such. He also works in the substantial and physical, taking care of the here and now, not the what-ifs of the future and the afterlife. “I figured that’s where you came in, Reverend,” (pg. 101 Gaines).
            The Reverend is trying to save the soul of young Jefferson. He sees this scared child, about to die and wants to make his afterlife tolerable, to save him from damnation. When thinking about bringing Jefferson something to ease his mind he “was thinking about the Bible,” (pg. 101 Gaines). This is the problem with the Reverend’s teachings and visits. He doesn’t see or think of the person Jefferson, he doesn’t even know the boy or try to know him really. His goal is to save his soul and that can only be done through prayer and acknowledging God. He brings the child salvation for later not for the now.
            It is in their utterly different agendas and concerns that the two differ. Though they both want to save and help Jefferson the one is concerned with the now and the other with the after. One doesn’t see the point in worrying about the after when there’s nothing to do for it and the other doesn’t see why to bother with the now if the after isn’t assured. Jefferson shows hatred for the Reverend, a man who would have him believe in another entity that, instead of saving Jefferson is letting him suffer and die for the sins of others and racist injustice. Grant knows the proceedings are bull and he doesn’t lie to Jefferson by assuring him he knows what’s out there when he doesn’t have a clue. Blind faith isn’t going to save the child’s mind as he nears his doom.
            Both men showed power, courage and conviction. The Reverend by attending the death and being their to help usher the soul into heaven, doing his job and ensuring the afterlife, and Grant by not attending the funeral and rather remembering the young man he’d taught, as a teacher, to hold himself up as a man, not an animal. Both men remained at Jefferson’s side, even when the boy didn’t want them, both determined to help him through this time. And both men achieved their goals in the end, Jefferson’s soul and mind was at rest upon his last breath.

Gaines, Ernest J. A Lesson Before Dying. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.


10:44:00 AM





Home?

“Indian Diaspora is a generic term to describe the people who migrated from territories that are currently within the borders of the Republic of India,” (2). In Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies we see this displacement of Indian peoples and their culture manifest in multiple ways. None are so obvious as that displayed in her “Mrs. Sen’s”. This feeling of displacement and phenomenon as newly emigrated Indian peoples move from their homelands to America for multiple reasons, mostly surrounding work and education, as they try and find their place in a new home and culture. Different values and skill sets are required to survive in America then anywhere else and it is a frightening and daunting task.
In Mrs. Sen’s we are privy to the acculturation of a young Indian bride newly arrived in America. She faces multiple hurdles in her new home, not the least of which being her need for work and her inability to drive. Mrs. Sen needs to learn to drive to get anywhere in her new home, whereas in India she had a driver who would take her and servants that would take care of some of the menial tasks. Here she must do for herself. The Diaspora is made increasing difficult due to the lack of certain mainstream stores and items that can be found in India but aren’t traditional in American groceries. Cooking needs to be relearned, as the Indian women need to learn how to cook with materials available, even though they aren’t necessarily the correct ingredients. The difference in clothing and mannerisms are also drastically distinctive. Americans are will skip meals such as Eliot’s mother, where Mrs. Sen s used to making large lunches and smaller dinners. Home cuisine is also more valued versus the pizza Eliot gets most nights.
When Mrs. Sen is speaking to Eliot’s mother she says, “Yes… Everything is there,” (pg. 113, Lahiri). New culture and works aren’t the only things working against the newly arrived, there is also a gut wrenching feeling of isolation as they are no longer surrounded by their people and family. Instead of a tight knit community of friends and family they are set adrift with only themselves and their spouses, and any other Indians they happen to meet in their immediate area. Any attempts to make friends and companions with the native American people is stunted by a stunningly intense cultural barrier. When there are few Indians in the area the feelings of displacement and adrift are intensified, especially after coming from a homeland were you are literally surrounded by family and friends with similar values and beliefs. It becomes daunting and depressing.
The Diaspora is a difficult phenomenon to handle for most emigrants. It can be disheartening as certain cultural mores and norms must be pushed aside to survive. Certain levels of assimilation are required by American culture or the emigrant will not survive, and in older emigrants it is harder to develop new habits and beliefs.

  1.      Lahiri, Jhumpa. Interpreter of Maladies. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999.
  2.     The Indian Diaspora. NIC. Web. 22 Apr. 2010. http://www.indiandiaspora.nic.in/ 


12:38:00 PM




The White Noise in Postmodernist Living Rooms

            Postmodernism is defined as “a recognition that reality is not simply mirrored in [the] human understanding of it, but rather, is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own particular and personal reality” (2). It relies on the interpretation of the individual, arguing there are no mass truths or explanations just personal experiences and interpretations. Throughout Don DeLillo’s White Noise we watch as the numerous characters, particularly Jack and Babette, face their similar fear, that of dying, yet their experiences are radically different from each other, leading them to different conclusions and actions.
            Jack spends the novel trying to understand and cope with his unnaturally acute fear of death. He becomes paranoid and destructive as he isolates himself from Babette and his family trying to find a way to help himself. He develops insomnia, as if to live more by avoiding sleep. When he seeks help from Murray, in a misguided attempt to grasp death and his life, be the dealer rather then the victim, he tries to kill Mink. “The point is you’re standing at the edge of a smoldering ruin where others lie inert and twisted. This can counteract the effect of any number of nebulous masses, at least for a time,” (pg. 287 DeLillo). He believes the way to escape his fear, since there is no medicine for it, is to observe the mortality of others and revel in his good fortune. It isn’t till he is shot that he realizes what nonsense this is as he rushes Mink to a hospital and saves his life.
            Babette has a similar paralyzing fear of death but she seeks relief in medication. This placebo lets her sleep and escape for a little while, though not for very long. Eventually she is always hit with the same fears even though she can fool herself more effectively and less destructively then Jack. It does, however, lead her to compromising herself and her marriage as she sleeps with her drug dealer for the relief she perceives she is gaining from the pills.
            Then there are people like Orest, who face death head on to staunch their fear. Orest is a snake tamer, facing death every time he’s encapsulated with one of his reptilian counterparts. “You don’t dwell on the negative,” (pg. 265, DeLillo). Rather then dwelling on the possibilities he moves past them, living life to his fullest, becoming the best snake wrangler around because of his unconcerned mindset. It is why Jack admires him, because he “would grow more life-strength as he neared the time,” (pg. 268, DeLillo). Instead of letting death and fear win, be the stronger forces in his life he builds his own strength.
            As any postmodernist work, DeLillo represents a universal problem and shows the multitude of the human interpretation and approaches to said problem. Rather then there being just one experience shared throughout humanity, there are multiple points of view and methods of handling the same circumstance. Some are more disturbed and destructive then others but it is the uniqueness of each individual human condition that is highlighted in postmodern fiction.

  1. 1.     DeLillo, Don. White Noise. United States of America: Penguin Books, 1998.
  2. "Postmodernism". Palomar. April 22, 2010 http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/postm-body.html


12:17:00 PM





The Family Way


“No longer can we use the ‘typical’ family of a husband, wife, and children as the normative family structure with which to evaluate and judge our family forms,” (pg. 227 Cosbey). In recent years necessity and alternative unions between peoples have transformed this definition. More and more we see households with both parents working and grandparents or aunts and uncles giving primary care to children. Adoption has become a popular alternative to having children or when the option isn’t available. Single independent women have begun to have children on their own without male aid. With the growing acceptance of same sex lifestyles children are growing up with two fathers or mothers. It only makes sense that this evolution in family values and dynamics would be reflected in literature of the day.
            In Edwidge Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory we have Sophie, the child of rape, living with her Aunt in Haiti and moving to stay with her mother in New York. The story progresses to reveal the horrors that can run through generations in a family, “There is always a place where nightmares are passed on through generations like heirlooms,” (pg. 234 Danticat). Martine begins to obsess over her daughter’s purity just as her own mother had obsessed over her own and scars Sophie as she herself had been scared. Sophie begins to heal only after she returns to Haiti and is reunited with her mother. Her husband begins to aid her healing and she joins a support group. Distancing herself from her place of origin and making her own way with her daughter and husband, help Sophie forge ahead in life. From feeling displaced as a child of rape she finds her place with her daughter and husband, though the healing is slow and necessary. The story ends with Sophie’s freedom from her mother and father in the cane fields, “where the daughter is never fully a woman until her mother has passed on before her,” (pg. 234 Danticat). Throught he shedding of her past family she is free and can move on with the family she has began to create for herself.
            The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd expands on the idea of family, not necessarily being confined to blood or direct relation and even takes it further as to suggest it transcends race as well. Lily is this young white girl who flees her biological father with her maid, Rosaleen, in a journey to find her birth mother. What she finds is a family in a group of complete strangers and a place where she can belong and grow into her own. “I have more mothers than any eight girls off the street,” (pg. 302 Kidd). Both Danticat and Kidd suggest family is something more then blood and relation, transcending physical and genetic bonds. Family is portrayed as something that can be found and formulated from experience and with caring; it need not be arbitrarily supplied at birth and can actually be escaped or refreshed. These self-attained families are seen as stronger and truer then those both girls had originally.
            They say when you kiss someone you’re kissing everyone that person has ever kissed. White Noise by Don DeLillo certainly brings a new twist to this statement and brings emphasis to the mutability of the contemporary family. With divorce being so popular in modern times families are reshaping and forming all the time. “My first and fourth marriages were to Dana Breedlove, who is Steffie’s mother,” (pg. 213 DeLillo). It’s as if the family has become mercurial. Changing every other moment as one or both persons decide to pack up the kids and their things and leave. But the past moves with them, exes follow each other and remain in contact, remarry, share children. The family now includes, not only mothers, fathers and children’s, but stepmothers one, two, three, stepbrothers, stepsisters. A hodgepodge of people all brought together by their pasts.
            “The sociology of literature has long recognized that literature reflects society,” (pg. 227 Cosbey). Literature is a documentation of social structure and beliefs. As such contemporary fiction has no option but to try to represent the variability that can be found in modern families. So many advancements have been made in society socially and mentally, between women’s rights, civil rights and the beginning of gay rights the modern family is more diverse and personalized. From these three contemporary novels alone the definition of family can be seen to vary vastly though certain elements remain. Caring and understanding remain large factors in the cohesion of families. In each of the novels the family either formed or feel apart due to the appreciation and attainment of trust, love and understanding.


Works Cited
Cosbey, Janet. "Using Contemporary Fiction To Teach Family Issues". American Sociological Association 1997: 227-233.
Danticat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory. New York: Division of Random House, Inc, 1994.
DeLillo, Don. White Noise. United States of America: Penguin Books, 1998.
Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees. New York: Penguin Books, 2002.


2:55:00 AM





Trendy Postmodernists


Contemporary fiction can be broken into an array of genre and categories. “The emergence and proliferation of feminist, multiethnic, multicultural, and postcolonial literature since the 1970s is, however, the most dramatic and significant manifestation of the de-centering and de-marginalization defining both postmodernity and postmodernism,” (5). With the onset of civil rights and the feminist movement, feminist theory and multiculturalism has taken the literary world by storm. As these issues have taken forefront in our minds and social demographics they have also flooded our fiction.
            Jhumpa Lahiri is particularly devoted to the experiences of the immigrant in America. She focuses on the effects of assimilation on families and people in her novels and short stories. The strain American culture puts on the newly arrived Immigrants such as Mrs. Sen in “Mrs. Sen’s” as she learns to drive, and the longing for home, “Everything is there,” (pg. 113 Lahiri). The differences between the cultures are sharply noted when Eliot’s family eats pizza for dinner where Mrs. Sen spends a good deal of time cooking for her family and Elliot. Emphasizing the differences in the cultures, demanding recognition for both is a staple of multicultural contemporary fiction. The rejection of traditional western ideals involving assimilation and the loss of personal culture are highlighted in Lahiri’s works as Mrs. Sen continues to cook here homeland’s food and wear her traditional garb.
            Breat, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat also works with multiculturalism. In Danticat’s novel, however, holding too tightly to the mother culture is seen as destructive. It is this fear of impurity that scars both Sophie and her mother. But where Sophie, through an American attitude concerning therapy, is capable of learning to handle her mental scaring, her mother is lost to a sickness that she does cannot seek help for and eventually kills herself, driven mad by her rape. Martine was “[from a place] where you carry your past like the hair on your head,” (pg. 234 Danticat). Her inability to let go of her past killed her. But with her death Sophie is freed and can move on and away from the harsher traditions in her culture.
            In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, we have cultures joining together and being celebrated. The melding of a white child into a black family is revolutionary for the time of the piece. Lily comes to the Beekeepers and discards her previous life, adopting theirs, eventually becoming the keeper of the prayer wall. It is a sharing and assimilation of a subculture. Traditionally it is white culture that is hoisted on other ethnicities and ‘traditional’ American culture. In this story a small collective of Mary worshippers assimilate the young white Lily. “Whereas Modernism places faith in the ideas, values, beliefs, culture, and norms of the West, Postmodernism rejects Western values and beliefs as only a small part of the human experience and often rejects such ideas, beliefs, culture, and norms,” (4). Keeping with the spirit of postmodernist rejection of the dominant culture, Kidd celebrates a smaller, personal worship in the Beekeepers.
            As more and more cultures begin to come together and meld, sharing their ideals and beliefs there is a need for understanding and empathy for the loss and assimilation of traditions. Without contemporary fiction to aid in the transition these experiences would not be recognized or shared nearly as effectually. With authors such as Lahiri, Kidd and Danticat celebrating a multitude of cultures, rather then focusing on American assimilation or purely their own origin cultures they enable the world and society to appreciate the diversity of the world we live in.


Works Cited
1.     Danticat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory. New York: Division of Random House, Inc, 1994.
2.     Lahiri, Jhumpa. Interpreter of Maladies. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999.
3.     Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees. New York: Penguin Books, 2002.
4.     "An Introduction To Modernism & Postmodernism". April 22, 2010 http://vc.ws.edu/engl2265/unit4/Modernism/all.htm
5.     "Postmodernism-Postmodernism In Literature And Art". April 22, 2010 http://science.jrank.org/pages/10807/Postmodernism-Postmodernism-in-Literature-Art.html


2:54:00 AM




Lily's Eyes

          Having a story, such as Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, rift in racial drama portrayed from the eyes of an adolescent white girl is a brilliant tactic. First person narration is a very personalized writing style in and of itself; it doesn’t merely open the reader to a different point of view but thrusts them into the story. The reader becomes part of the story, experiencing the author’s narrative as close to first hand as they can without having been physically there. The juxtaposition between the innocents of childhood and the harsh reality of adult life, especially in such a traumatic time as post civil rights South, brings levels of confusion and truths to the reader that could be overlooked any other way.
            Utilizing a child’s persona to question social norms and accepted facts and attitudes of a time is far from an original idea, seen in multiple American novels such as To Kill A Mockingbird or, for a brief period, Celie from The Color Purple. Even though it isn’t unusual it is no less intense or shaking. Adults have more control in life; their choices and actions dictate their path. Life just happens to children. There’s an inherent helplessness and naiveté that colors their perception and views. It makes them ideal for questioning the ways life works and for feeling the hardships of life.
            By using Lily as a window into her novel, Kidd drives home the atrocity of racism and how convoluted the logic that governs society is. As we see the savage beating of Rosaleen at the beginning of the novel the reader is further taken aback as they realize that a young child is viewing this “By then Rosaleen lay sprawled on the ground, pinned, twisting her fingers around clumps of grass. Blood ran from a cut her eye. It curved under her chin the way tears do,” (pg. 33). It’s such a horrifying scene, and then the reader realizes at the end, with an innocent observation “the way tears do” that this happened in front of a little girl. It brings further horror to a horrifying experience and has questions of how this could happen and why it was allowed to roar through the reader.
When Lily recounts her interactions with boys at her old home and the cruel treatment she suffered at their hands as they forced live fish around her neck, and her observation afterwards, “I think that was the worst part. I could’ve helped them, but I didn’t,” (pg. 229). It’s scenes like these, where childhood cruelty can be used to clarify adult cruelty, where everything is so black and white, that make an adult reader look into themselves and remember times and people that they too could have aided but didn’t. People could have saved Rosaleen from that mob or Lily from her father, but they didn’t. People could stand and fight for people, black or white, but they don’t for their own fears or cruelty prevent them. By looking at these issues through a youth it becomes amazingly clear, and less convoluted in the trappings of adulthood and the right path is laid clear and obvious.


Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees. New York. Penguin Books, 2002.


12:46:00 AM




Grant’s Lesson 
            Though Ernest J. Gaines’ novel, A Lesson Before Dying, centers on the maturation and salvation of the wrongfully condemned Jefferson, it is the transformation in the disillusioned teacher, Grant Wiggins, which is illuminated through his narration. The reader moves with Grant as he regains hope and compassion for his community as he struggles with Jefferson and finally realizes his position in the black community is not as futile as he originally believes.

            Upon entering the novel the reader is filled with a sense of entrapment, “No, I did not go to the trial, I did not hear the verdict, because I knew all the time what it would be” (pg. 3). Instantly we are slapped with Grant’s despondency regarding the station of blacks in the country. As the story progresses Grant is revealed to be a collage graduate who has spent time in California but returned to the little Cajun town of his birth to teach the black students in his community. He occupies this tragic station in life where he is a person of higher education who is well aware of the injustice of his peoples’ lot in life but powerless to change it. Grant is supremely sensitive to the fact he is smarter then most everyone around him, including the whites that make him grovel and dumb him down, “The fat man didn’t like that quick maneuver. I could see it in his face. ‘You’re smart,’ Guidry said. ‘Maybe you’re just a little too smart for your own good’” (pg. 49). Throughout the novel we are privy to the expected social niceties demanded of the black community in deference to their white neighbors and how Grant resists and resents them, “Since Miss Emma was not with us this time, I walked beside the deputy instead of behind him” (pg. 81). All these combine to fill him with rage and hopelessness. He sees nothing redeeming in his pupils as they continue to live the lives of their ancestors. Life in this town is a vicious cycle that keeps the black community dumb, subservient, and poverty stricken. He’s suffocated by the social obligations being put on him and is embittered by them, “Everything you sent me to school for, you’re stripping me of it…Professor Antoine told me that if I stayed here, they were going to break me down to the nigger I was born to be. But he didn’t tell me that my aunt would help them do it” (pg. 79). He doesn’t want anything to do with Jefferson or the rest of the town, he wants to escape somewhere he is treated like the educated man he is.

         Grant slowly goes through a personal renaissance in conjuncture with Jefferson’s. “Grant realizes that the powerlessness of Jefferson is, in fact, not so different from the powerlessness he himself feels. While Jefferson is imprisoned in a literally confining structure of white law, Grant is also imprisoned within the structures of white discourse” (Auger 76). As Jefferson takes from him a form of secular salvation, Grant is given hope for the future. He begins to see that his teaching is far from meaningless; rather, it has the potential to sprout greatness in those he nurtures. Grant begins to loose his anger, calming into a composed and less hateful man. He still sees the injustice but now can focus on the hope that some day, multiple individuals like Jefferson shall rise up and demonstrate to the rest of the world just what the black community is made of. Perhaps his own students.

         “I don’t know what you’re going to say when you go back in there. But tell them he was the bravest man in that room today. I’m a witness. Grant Wiggins. Tell them so” (pg. 256). As Paul is moved by Jefferson’s transformation under Grant’s tutelage he shows the hope for the transition, when black men are acknowledge for themselves. Grant is Grant Wiggins, not boy, not Higgins. He is acknowledged as a person, the beginning of the great changes to come and that of Grant’s own cleansing as he begins to find peace and accomplishment in himself and his work.




Auger, Philip. “A Lesson About Manhood: Appropriating “The Word” in Ernest Gaines’s “A Lesson before Dying””. The Southern Literary Journal 27 (1995): 74-85.

Gaines, Ernest J. A Lesson Before Dying. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.


1:17:00 PM




Modernism Manifests
Through a variety of styles and subject matters the authors of our five completed novels have furnished the Modernist movement. Though inherently unique there are certain aspects of the selections that connect and allow them to fall under the broader heading of Modernist literature. The pure explorations in style, the baser language and the intense subject matter are all staples of Modernist literature.

Modernism is seen as an “adversary culture” (Singal, pg. 113). It is a rebellion and rejection of Victorianism’s idealistic and naïve culture. Rather then focusing on an “ideal of a stable, peaceful society free from sin and discord,” (Singal, pg. 114) Modernism emphasizes a depressing inability to escape from said discord, celebrating sin and freedom. This manifests in an “experimental side of literature,” (Bogan, pg. 109), away from the refined and stogy Victorianism, to a baser yet no less impressive form of writing. “[A] distilled sense of actuality: a sense of untoward squalor and specialized glitter; a sad and ugly pathos and an outmoded and naïve gaiety; a sense of the hidden massiveness of institutions opposed to an extreme particularization of individuals,” (Bogan, pg. 99). The writing style becomes varied and innovative. New stylistic endeavors, marked by stream of conscious and the unreliable narrator, Modernism is centered on the evils of institutions and the depravity of community.

Allen Ginsberg’s Howl is an example of Modernism revolting against Victorianism. Though Walt Whitman can be said to straddle the lines of Victorianism and Modernism it is the style of writing that reminisces Victorianism and it is this structure that makes Ginsberg’s common language and harsh criticism all the more biting and intensifies the poem itself. “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,” (Ginsberg, pg. 9). His harsh worldview is a Modernist vision at the same time his style, borrowed from a previous age, thumbs its nose at old notions and belief structures.

A Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion continues with this deterioration in the inherent goodness of the world. Rather then seeing an idealized world lacking sin and discord the book is centered on discord and the consequences of sin. The style is also a divergence from the traditional prose of the Victorianism era. Rather then a competent narrator the novel is read as if from a diary. Omnipotence is forgone in favor of a human and personal connection with the characters that enrich the turmoil in the novel, thrusting the reader into the same discord, enveloping them into the Modernist piece.

The Book of Daniel by E.L. Doctorow takes things one-step further, continuing with the experimentation that runs the Modernist movement; it introduces an unreliable narrator, adding to the turmoil of life with the turmoil of the mind. Timelines are flowing backwards and forwards at once, thrusting uncertainty to the forefront of the novel. It’s symbolic of the times, the convoluted and uncertain time period during the cold war and the 1950s.

All three novels display the common contemporary experimentation with style and expression that Modernists took up in their attempts to relay their disgust and melancholy over societies downfall. Through innovative style and language the Modernists take traditional Victorianism and flip or ignore it all together, branching out into fresher and organic writing that’s more realistic and reflective of the war torn and sinful society that pervades everyday life.



Bogan, Louise. “Modernism in American Literature”. American Quarterly 2 (1950): 99-111.

Didion, Joan. A Book of Common Prayer. New York: Vintage Books, 1977.

Doctorow, E.L. The Book of Daniel. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 1971.

Ginsberg, Allen. Howl. San Fransisco: City Lights Books, 1959.

Singal, Daniel Joseph. “Towards a Definition of American Modernism”. American Quarterly 39 (1981): 112-131.


12:26:00 PM




Pre-Civility in A Lesson Before Dying and The Color Purple

            Part of the reason A Lesson Before Dying and The Color Purple are so esteemed is the ability of both works to capture the essence of what the Pre-civil rights era was like for the black community. Both pieces encapsulate the cruelty and degradation the community was forced to deal with as black Americans were treated as subservient to white America and the injustices that transpired as a result.


The Post Civil War treatment of African Americans was hardly any better then slavery. “[T]he newly freed slaves labored under conditions similar to those existing before the war…The new state legislatures passed laws designed to keep blacks in poverty and in positions of servitude.” (5) Originally they were not allowed to own land or vote and were continuously prosecuted for trumped up charges under pro-slavery legislators. Through many legal battles blacks were given rights to own land and pursue avenues that would improve their quality of life, but they were very limited. The school system proved to be the largest contender in the advancement of the society. “[I]n the Deep South, black schools in Louisiana suffered from extreme neglect and overcrowding” (Johnson, pg. 148). Whites and blacks were kept separate, not aloud to intermingle, especially in school. A ‘separate but equal’ policy came to play were black institutions were established to mirror white institutions. But “the indifference of the local school board, the lack of adequate materials, the over crowded conditions in a small facility, and the low salaries, were all dominant characteristics of Black schooling prior to World Was II” (Fultz, pg. 196) all contrived to subvert any attempts of the black community to better themselves. In many cases parents of black children would keep them from school, viewing work as a more productive use of time and resources.

Both novels capture the inequalities and low social standing the black community held, as well as the self-sabotage that took place. In Walker’s, The Color Purple, Celie is the victim of her own community as much as white society. She is taken from school by her stepfather who sees no reason for the girl to pursue further education, “You too dumb to be going to school, Pa say. Nettie the clever one in the bunch,” (Walker, pg. 9). Unable to grow intellectually, Celie is stunted and shut into a subservient role that she cannot escape. With no training she perceives herself as useless in all things save child rearing and housework. Walker also captures the white black interactions; the way blacks are talked down to and disregarded as humans in the novel mirrored the traditional attitudes of the time. Sofia’s defiance is an oddity and winds her in jail for her troubles and attempts to force everyone to see black women as more then what they are being forced to be. Ernest J. Gaines novel, A Lesson Before Dying, shows the frustration and inability to escape from the unjust white legislature that is oppressing black society during this time. Jefferson is killed for a crime he didn’t commit merely because he was a black man on site. Grant is shown to be a helpless pawn in the white communities ministrations as he teaches his students bible verses and watches as they are treated as chattel, “Dr. Joseph has graduated to the level where he let the children spread out their own lips, rather than using some kind of crude metal instrument. I appreciated his humanitarianism,” (Gaines, pg. 56). There seems to be no escaping this mistreatment, to protest would only bring the wrath of the white community. So they must grin and bear it not forgetting their ‘sirs’ at the end of their sentences.


Cruelty and carelessness characterized the treatment of blacks by whites Pre-civil rights and both novels capture the essence of the time but they also impart a hopefulness that things would change. Both novels end with the main character’s growth and rising forward to meet the challenges given them with grace and determination leaving an uplifting and hopeful message of days to come.




Fultz, Michael. “Teacher Training and African American Education in the South, 1900-1940”. The Journal of Negro Education 67 (1995): 196-210.

Gaines, Ernest J. A Lesson Before Dying. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.

Johnson, Phillip J. “Confronting the Dilemma: Charles S. Johnson’s Study of Lousisana’s Black Schools”. The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 38 (1997): 133-155.

Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. Orlando, Florida: A Havest Book Harcourt, Inc, 2003.

"Life After the 13th Amendment". Rochester. March 4.


12:25:00 PM




Howl vs. Song of Myself
            In a dreary rendition of life and the shared experiences of Americans post World War II, Howl is a heart wrenching and disturbing poem by Allen Ginsberg. Stylistically Ginsberg draws from Walt Whitman, noticeably shadowing Whitman’s own poem Song of Myself. The influences of Whitman on Howl continue to extend beyond style, however. In the choice of diction, meaning and tone Ginsberg escapes Whitman, practically attacking his source’s outlook on life and rendition of the world at large.

            Beginning with the obvious similarities between Whitman and Ginsberg one is instantly drawn to the structure and syntax of the pieces. Ginsberg has spaced his poem into parts just as Whitman, though not nearly as numerous. In this way he organizes his work based on the topics he wishes to address. In the first stanza he is addressing the state his generation has fallen to, in the second he comments on Moloch and the destruction that has centered round it and so on. Whitman does the very same in his piece going from a description of himself to one of a scene in a learning to “listen from all sides and filter from yourself” (3). In both poems each stanza could stand on their own, but together make a tremendous and moving piece. He also utilizes Whitman’s descriptive, non-rhyming style. His writing almost appears as prose, telling a story in sentences that repeat and describe. His excessive use of adjectives and description is also a nod to Whitman as he goes on for pages to paint a picture of what he is trying to convey.

            At the same time Whitman’s influence is undeniable there is a great deal of tension when placing the pieces together. “Howl is a deliberately upsetting poem,” (2) pushing at the blinders of the naïve and optimistic. Ginsberg is disturbing in his description of the world and the activities that have taken hold of his fellows. The wasting away of the minds of the brilliant and the discarded is traumatizing and dark. His description of the crushed lives and suppressed souls leaves the reader clawing at their own throats to awaken themselves from “the coma by our own souls” (Ginsberg 26). Whitman’s poem is filled with lighter imagery, one of rebirth and finding one’s self. Even death is viewed in a positive light “it is just as lucky to die” (3). Ginsberg, in utilizing Whitman’s style, seems almost as if to challenge the other man’s views of life and death. His view is dark and painful where Whitman rights of an airy acceptance of life and death, of finding oneself. Ginsberg seems to deny the ability of anyone to find themselves, instead emphasizing a narcotic coma that even the soul cannot release us from, save in dreams.

            In an attack of the elder man and poet Ginsberg masters a free verse style in his poem Howl to combat Whitman’s. He copies the artist in style and syntax as he expresses his very Modernist opinion and attitude in a dark and depressing poem detailing the fall of humanity and the inner turmoil of his generations psyche. He denies Whitman’s optimistic view of life and attacks it with his truer and darker vision of everyday life for his generation.


         Ginsberg, Allen. How and Other Poems. San Francisco: City Lights Book, 1959.

         Railton, Stephan. "Ginsberg Lecture." American Literature Since 1865. Web.  http://people.virginia.edu/~sfr/enam312/lects/apr22.html

         Whitman, Walt. "Song of Myself." The Day Poems. Timothy Bovee. Web. http://www.daypoems.net/poems/1900.html#top






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