Genre Blog Post: Poetry

For my poetry genre post, I will be looking at racial prejudice in The Lynching by Claude McKay. Due to it being a fairly short poem, I will include the whole of it in my post. It can also be found in The Norton Anthology: American Literature shorter 8th edition V.2 1865 to present on page 927:

The Lynching by Claude Mckay

1 His spirit is smoke ascended to high heaven.

2 His father, by the cruelest way of pain,

3 Had bidden him to his bosom once again;

4The awful sin remained still unforgiven.

5 All night a bright and solitary star

6 Yet gave him up at last to Fate's wild whim)

7 Hung pitifully o'er the swinging char.

8 Day dawned, and soon the mixed crowds came to view

9 The ghastly body swaying in the sun:

10 The women thronged to look, but never a one

11 Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue;

12 And little lads, lynchers that were to be,

13 Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee.

According to Eji.com, a website focused on relieving social injustices and covering many different social movements, past and present, states that, between 1877 and 1950, at least 4,875 reported lynchings happened in the southern United States to cause racial terror. So this piece would be hitting on a very real and contemporary issue at the time of its publication in 1922.

What is interesting about this piece is that not only can you see the vivid hate African-Americans had for White Americans at the time, but the audience also begins to feel this way by the amazing descriptions portrait in the poem.  To begin, we can see how much pain this caused. For example, the first two lines of the poem “His spirit is smoke ascended to high heaven. His father, by the cruelest way of pain”. The reader can easily visualise a man burning in agony and his soul ascending after strenuous torture. Then we are shown how white men and women, in lines 10-13, come to see the corpse, to dance and feel no sorrow towards it. The work is extremely effective in completing its task of making the audience feel repulsed at the actions within and to let them know that this is what African-Americans (at the time) were facing on a daily basis. It create the sympathy need to bring about change.

This poem shows just how far we have come with correcting social injustices but there are still many other issues related to race that need to be tackled such as wrongful imprisonment, discrimination, among others.  

Works Cited

"Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror." Equal Justice Initiative. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.

McKay, Claude. "The Lynching." 1922. The Norton Anthology: American Literature. Shorter 8th Edition ed. Vol. 2. New York City: Norton, 2013. 927. Print. 1865 to the Present.

Genre blog post: Drama

For my drama blog posts, I will be looking at gender as my theme, due to it’s interesting relationship with A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. Throughout the novel, gender plays an important role in developing the characters. I would like to focus on scene three of the play, more specifically, the following passage from pages 1131 - 1133:

STEVE: Anything wild this deal?

PABLO: One-eyed jacks are wild.

STEVE: Give me two cards.

PABLO: You, Mitch?

MITCH: I'm out

PABLO: One.

MITCH: Anyone want a shot?

STANLEY: Yeah. Me.

PABLO: Why don't somebody go to the Chinaman's and bring back a load of chop suey? STANLEY: When I'm losing you want to eat! Ante up! Openers? Openers! Get y'r ass off the table, Mitch. Nothing belongs on a poker table but cards, chips and whiskey. [He lurches up and tosses some watermelon rinds to the floor.]

MITCH: Kind of on your high horse, ain't you?

STANLEY: How many?

STEVE: Give me three.

STANLEY: One.

MITCH: I'm out again. I oughta go home pretty soon.

STANLEY: Shut up.

MITCH: I gotta sick mother. She don't go to sleep until I come in at night.

STANLEY: Then why don't you stay home with her?

MITCH: She says to go out, so I go, but I don't enjoy it. All the while I keep wondering how

she is.

STANLEY: Aw, for the sake of Jesus, go home, then!

PABLO: What've you got?

STANLEY: Spade flush.

MITCH: You all are married. But I'll be alone when she goes.--I'm going to the bathroom. STANLEY: Hurry back and we’ll fix you a sugar-tit.

MITCH: Aw, go rut. [He crosses through the bedroom into the bathroom.]

STEVE [dealing a hand): Seven-card stud. [Telling his joke as he deals] This ole farmer is out in back of his house sittin' down th'owing corn to the chickens when all at once he hears a loud cackle and this young hen comes lickety split around the side of the house with the rooster right behind her and gaining on her fast.

STANLEY [impatient with the story]: Deal!

STEVE: But when the rooster catches sight of the farmer th'owing the corn he puts on the brakes and lets the hen get away and starts pecking corn. And the old farmer says, "Lord God, I hopes I never gits that hongry!" [Steve and Pablo laugh. The sisters appear around the corner of the building]

STELLA: The game is still going on.

BLANCHE: How do I look?

STELLA: Lovely, Blanche.

BLANCHE: I feel so hot and frazzled. Wait till I powder before you open the door. Do I look done in?

STELLA: Why no. You are as fresh as a daisy.

BLANCHE: One that's been picked a few days. [Stella opens the door and they enter.]

STELLA: Well, well, well. I see you boys are still at it!

STANLEY: Where you been?

STELLA: Blanche and I took in a show. Blanche, this is Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Hubbell. BLANCHE: Please don't get up.

STANLEY: Nobody's going to get up, so don't be worried.

STELLA: How much longer is this game going to continue?

STANLEY: Till we get ready to quit.

BLANCHE: Poker is so fascinating. Could I kibitz?

STANLEY: You could not. Why don't you women go up and sit with Eunice?

STELLA: Because it is nearly two-thirty. [Blanche crosses into the bedroom and partially closes the portieres] Couldn't you call it quits after one more hand? [A chair scrapes. Stanley gives a loud whack of his hand on her thigh.]

STELLA [sharply]: That's not fun, Stanley. [The men laugh. Stella goes into the bedroom.]

STELLA: It makes me so mad when he does that in front of people.

BLANCHE: I think I will bathe.

STELLA: Again?

BLANCHE: My nerves are in knots. Is the bathroom occupied?

STELLA: I don't know.

[Blanche knocks. Mitch opens the door and comes out, still wiping his hands on a towel.]

Now, I understand that gender and gender roles are a huge topic with many implications, but I

would like to focus on traditional gender roles. In other words, I would like to look at how the play shows what men and women are supposed to do and how they are supposed to act. I believe this passage shows the clearest picture. What is interesting about this play in particular, is that it uses traditional gender roles in what would be seen in a lower-class neighborhood and the fact that this play was written in the years following WWII. During WWII, many women took up jobs to support the household and to help the war effort. While this did decline in middle to upper class families in the years following the war, lower class families kept with this trend out of necessity. This, however, doesn’t seem to be the case with Stella and Stanley. Stanley is portrayed as some sort of tradesman, and Stella doesn’t seem to be employed. I believe that this misrepresentation was done on purpose to appeal to the higher socioeconomic classes at the time.

Now, employment isn’t the only area that gender roles cover, household life is a very prominent fixture of traditional gender roles. Here is where the play is fairly accurately representing these roles. Let’s look at the passage that was cited earlier. First, the scene begins with all of the men sitting around the table playing poker. Right away we can see degrees of masculinity around the table. We have Stanley, who is shown to be the alpha of the group from what we previously have read and how he makes fun at the other two at the table, Mitch and Pablo. Pablo seems to be a neutral figure in terms of his masculinity because don’t know much about him. Mitch, on the other hand we learn quite a bit about during the rest of the story beginning with this scene. Throughout this scene, he is constantly berated by Stanley for having to go home and take care of his mother ( we can infer that this is because that job was that of women using traditional gender roles) and for spending time with the women in the other room. Then you get to the women. Stanley stresses that Blanche is not allowed to play poker with the guys and insisting that they go upstairs and spend their time with Eunice. Stanley obviously sees poker as a manly game that women should have no part in. Traditional gender role show that the men and women should keep to themselves and not cross into each others territory, meaning that if it is viewed as manly, women should have no part in it and visa-versa.

Finally, I believe that these stereotypical roles presented in the play might be satirical. This is partially due to the background information on Tennessee Williams that was presented by Cat, in-class. More specifically, the fact that he was raised solely by his mother and his father was a drunken salesman who was never present. Take Stanley for instance. He is presented as a manly man and slowly, throughout the play, none of his actions make him into a better or successful person and he is seen in a very harsh light (putting it lightly) towards the end of the play. Then, on the other hand, Blanche who also follows traditional women gender roles, is taken for granted and in in much worse shape at the end of the play then when she first came to New Orleans. This not to say that this was her fault but she also never took any actions towards improving herself and focused solely on what society wanted her to be.

Literary analysis

My theme, dehumanization, is fairly strong within UTC and has many implications on the final meaning of the novel. For starters, many of times, slaves are referred to as “critters” instead of people. I believe this allows the white population in the book, as well as in real life, to put distance between themselves and what they see as a different species. However, this is contrasted well in situations where the novel is pushing the audience to see blacks as people as well as, families, households, and communities. For example, on page 100-101, while George is talking to Mr. Wilson, he states: "See here, now, Mr. Wilson....look at me, now. Don't I sit before you, every way, just as much a man as you are? Look at my face, -- look at my hands, -- look at my body," and the young man drew himself up proudly; "why am I not a man, as much as anybody? Well, Mr. Wilson, hear what I can tell you. I had a father -- one of your Kentucky gentlemen -- who didn't think enough of me to keep me from being sold with his dogs and horses, to satisfy the estate, when he died. I saw my mother put up at sheriff's sale, with her seven children. They were sold before her eyes, one by one, all to different masters; and I was the youngest. She came and kneeled down before old Mas'r, and begged him to buy her with me, that she might have at least one child with her; and he kicked her away with his heavy boot. I saw him do it; and the last that I heard was her moans and screams, when I was tied to his horse's neck, to be carried off to his place.". This is a clear and cut scene where George is not so much trying to appeal to Mr. Wilson, but to the audience, with a fairly simple message, “I am a man, just like you, why am I not seen as such” and takes two routes in doing so. One being that, physically, George is a man as much as the next, but also has just as much heart and emotion as the next man. This allows the audience not only to see into George's life, but allows them to substitute their life into his and ask “what would I do if that was my family and I were treated as such?”. This statement also allows for a larger audience (that being both whites and blacks) because it asks the read to see past such things. Such an argument can also be seen in in chapter 30 when the slave sale is taking place. For a quick recap, there are a mother and daughter hoping to be bought as a pair, but when it the mother is sold: “Down goes the hammer again, -- Susan is sold! She goes down from the block, stops, looks wistfully back, -- her daughter stretches her hands towards her. She looks with agony in the face of the man who has bought her, -- a respectable middle-aged man, of benevolent countenance. "O, Mas'r, please do buy my daughter!" "I'd like to, but I'm afraid I can't afford it!" said the gentleman, looking, with painful interest, as the young girl mounted the block, and looked around her with a frightened and timid glance.” This is obviously trying to show the reader that the whole system of slavery goes beyond physical torture, but goes farther with emotional torture while families are constantly being ripped apart for the convenience of the buyer. This once again allows the reader to step into the soles of the slave and see how destructive it would be to them it it were their families. It also shows how the slaves are viewed as nothing but objects with a price tag. Price is also a fairly common theme in UTC, constantly asking how much a slave is worth by their skills and physical form. This just further dehumanizes the slave into an object that can be do with however the master pleases. Overall, dehumanization is an essential theme to not only Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but to slavery in general and the novel gives many situations to show how dehumanization is essential to the system of slavery. Without it, the system would fail and that, in my opinion is one of the strongest arguments that Uncle Tom’s Cabin makes.

Critical Commentary

For the reader response section of this project, I found it difficult to connect my particular theme with any of the three essays in the Critics section of UTC. Nevertheless, I have selected to work with the essay Who Gets to Create Lasting Images? The Problem of Black Representation in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written by Sophia Cantave. In this essay, Cantave focuses on if Stowe’s novel should be the one used in teaching the issues of slavery, or just as a note to it’s historical significance and use novel written by African Americans that have a more realistic view of slavery. Cantave acknowledges the historical significance of the novel, being the novel that sparked the debate on slavery or, to use her words “the proverbial ‘shot heard around the world’”, but questions whether we should not be using something more fitting as a teaching material. One her main points comes from page 585 where she explains that, though UTC “made slavery readable” and “gives white people and black people a way to read slavery together.” that more realistic novels exist that might not be as pretty persay, but a better first-hand account in a modern sense. One suggestion Cantave gives is to have UTC read side-by-side with Our Nig, by Harriet Wilson. She believes that Our Nig gives many ways to look at the issue of slavery and appealed more to blacks than whites. This would then give the audience a better sense of what the black community were feeling at this time. She also offers that, because Stowe did not write on the worst issues in slavery, the fact that she used a slave interactions a comic relief in parts of UTC, and that many slaves were not able to write on these monstrosities, that their is a lack of appropriate black voices in literature to properly frame slavery in an educational way. This essay strengthened my assumptions about UTC. I assumed that Stowe didn’t write on the extremes of slavery to appeal more to the white population at the time. However this makes sense, being that the white population were the ones who needed a novel such as this to change their long held views on slavery. I also have to agree with Cantave, in that, while the book was what was at the time, we should look to other novels along side UTC to further frame slavery in an educational standpoint.

Reader responce

After looking over many of the reviews of UTC on Goodreads and Amazon books, there were two categories that most reviews fell under. Those being It was a great book, both as a novel and as an important historical book, and that the novel itself was not all that great but it still had historical importance. Many who disliked the novel said that it was slow and demanded sympathy from characters that needed more reasoning. Others, especially on Barnes and Noble saw the novel as well written and puts the past in a very realistic light. Those who thought it was bad were summarized well by Goodreads user, Anirudh, Who stated “The pace of the novel is quite slow... melodramatic with characters which demand your sympathy” and “The book was difficult read. It took much longer than I expected to finish.” On the other hand, those who thought the novel was good can be summarized by an anonymous guest user on Barnes and Noble, stating “This book is a very nice read....Harriet Beecher Stowe does a wonderful job of showing the cruelties of slavery and the diversity of slave owners...” and this statement from Amazon user, Regina W, “ is a well-written book with a lot of societal impact tied to it.....Stowe’s strong literary tactics in Uncle Tom’s Cabin really helped her drive home her message of anti-slavery...I would definitely recommend reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Overall, I have to say that my opinion lies directly in the middle of these two opinions. I believe that the novel can be very slow at times and that some of the characters tend to be melodramatic while requiring ample amounts of sympathy from the reader fairly often. However, the story is structured well, with having much of the plot being two-forked, meaning that there is always an opposite to each character and that helps the reader see thing from most points of view. I also believe that this puts the past in an extremely real light and allows the reader to feel the struggles of those times first hand. So in overview, my opinion is that the book is fairly decent, gets the point across, but can drag from time to time, allowing the reader to get distracted.

Theme

I will be focusing my Race and the American Novel Project on the issue of dehumanization. Specifically, how slaves were dehumanized by society.

Textual Background

For my for my textual background and context section of the Race and American Novel project, I will be focusing on the third image in the historical context section of our edition of Uncle tom’s’ Cabin by Harriet beecher Stowe (that being the Norton critical edition 2nd ed.) and edited by Elizabeth Ammons. The Title of this poster is Announcement of slave sale, out of Lexington, Kentucky 1885. The first real sight of dehumanization is iminate of the fact that there is a sale of humans as property, however, that is a given. What is really eye-catching however, is how the slaves are described, particularly, the males. They are described as “bucks” for sale, insinuating that they are cattle and nothing more. This is strengthened by the sub text underneath the title stating “All raised on the Carter plantation”. It is also interesting to see how the women are portrayed. They are stated as “wench’s” and have listed their age and various skill. While this in and of itself isn’t dehumanising (other than humans being sold as property), wench is automatically derivative of “servant”. This sheds a great amount of light to my understanding of UTC and the situation that it presents. This is most true in chapter 30 “The slave Warehouse” in which Uncle Tom, along with many other slaves from the St. Clare estate were to be sold to the highest bidder. On page 297, Stowe writes “Then you shall be courteous entreated to call and examine, and shall find an abundance of husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, and young children, to be ‘sold separately, or in lots to suit the convenience of the purchaser’”, which only strengthens the argument that slavery has to dehumanize the slave. If an advertisement was put up stating that they were selling members of families separate or together at buyers convenience, it might grow on the conscience of the buyer or simple the passer by that happens to see the advertisement, and the whole system might start to collapse. Instead they advertise such as in the poster seen in on page 413 in order make them seem less human and more cattle-like.