40 Acres and Mule

Is she the mule?

Could the connection between the black slave and the white woman -- the tension between the two so beautifully captured in the current democratic race (I see the racism in that remark -- but I can't deny that when I was in the class African American History in the United States, the instructor, himself a black Methodist male, declared, "A white woman will be president before a black male..." leaving it up to us to decide whether this was a tragedy or not) -- be utterly contrived? I don't know how to reconcile this. When we were reading duBois in American Lit II at Fullerton a girl had the gall to compare the black slave experience to the white woman's experience, and I, with my carefully controlled tongue, blurted out, "And how many women were lynched in the 20th century? The 19th century?" and that girl wasn't thrilled with my comment, and possibly due to this confrontation, dropped the course.

I have trouble relating the experience of a white woman to that of a black slave, but I also struggle with comparisons I can't deny. In the paper that I am attempting to write for my American Lit class at DH I am comparing two texts that deal with innocence vs. experience. I want to use Huck Finn, and for the other text (keep in mind that there is no other text concerning slavery except "The Goophered Grapevine," I have selected The Yellow Wallpaper. And half a days notes into this I have run up against the wall of black slave vs. white woman. I have obvious problems with this comparison. And I know I could just use the texts, and there is no harm in doing so, but I think there could be harm to me. I see a fair and moving amount of difference in each experience, mostly concerned with the possibility of public execution. If Jim is caught as a runaway slave it is not impossible that he will be made an example out of, that is, castrated, hanged, and burnt. If the narrator from the Yellow Wallpaper were to leave her husband, she would be an outcast of society, but the prospect of physical violence is not apparent, and in this respect I don't see her having as much to lose. I guess it all depends on where you put your money, on physical or psychological violence. And even though these two different FORMS of violence have very different ways of acting out, the effects of them are similar, that is, they cause the victims to behave in similar ways.

What I have a deep problem with is one using the other as an example. At the very least it is a logical fallacy, and at best a haggard attempt at sympathy. One could possibly be a metaphor for the other, but they cannot truly be compared. And then, where law steps in, well that is a whole other story.

I'm pained by the whole process. I don't know where to draw comparisons and where to fight against the notion that the pight of a slave and the plight of a woman are similar. One has chains associated with physical torture and execution and the other has chains associated with identity and ego. I suppose they could run parallel in purely psychological terms, but not at the same time, and not according to the same rules.

Utterly infuriating.

Merry Racist England

We started discussing Oroonoko in Brit Lit yesterday, and I was pretty annoyed by the time we got out. The instructor is somewhat of an Anglophile, and Brit Lit is her specialty, and she was so excited to teach this work; she claimed it was one of her absolute favorites to teach. My approach to this work is one of more dread than eager anticipation. I think the first time I read it it nearly gave me an axiety attack, what with the dismemberment and roasting of Oroonoko at the end. But what turns me off the book completely is how Behn describes Oroonoko in the first place. She basically suggests that Oroonoko is only African in skin color, and is European in every other physical aspect. He has European looks, speaks English and French; he is basically a white European aristocrat, in black face. I can't stand this point of view -- that he was a "great soul" due to his possession of Eurocentric ideals.

So I don't really like Behn. It is a real aggravating read for me from the start, and the finish is just as ludicrous. Our instructor started things off well enough, but the conversation turned when she moved on to the description of Oroonoko that I just mentioend. Several black girls in the class remarked that he seems really handsome, ohhing and ahhing about how "fine" he is. The instructor asks the class who they think could play the part of Oroonoko today, and the girls began to call out actors like Tyrese, and Tyson Beckford, and my hand shot up and I said, "I don't think anyone could play this role. This is a white person in blackface -- this is a made up person that doesn't exist..." Okay. While I might have some control of words on paper, I have limited control orally, and am often misunderstood. A black student remarked, right after my mini-outburst, that of course there are black people that look like this, implying that I was suggesting there are no black people who look European, or have European facial features, which was not my point all, but what can I do? The teacher is fostering this conversation, using Behn's time and ideals as a cover for glossing over the issue of race in Oroonoko.

All this has made me very wary of this class. I understand that we can focus on Behn's fierce royalism, her loyalty to royal ideals, but when Eurocentrism is not identified and demonized (at least by someone in the class), I have a hard time believing that there is any critical thinking going on. I used to think I was at least somewhat into English Literature, but the more I read it, the less I care, and the more I just want to focus on American Literature....forever! But I can't ignore Shakespeare, and I do like Virginia Woolf, and even the Bronte sisters. I'm just really shocked that I'm in what would be considered an ethnically diverse class, discussing things like Royalism, and the girls in the class are swooning over Oroonoko instead of punching Behn in the face for crapping on his African heritage. It's tough, I can't excuse it.

I just realized...

...that both charaters, Tom and Huck, play tricks on Jim. Huck's trick moves the story forward, while Tom's trick comes off as just a tangential aside. I see now how Jim's different reaction to the tricks says something. Not sure exactly what, yet, but this may be the beginning of a cool paper. Someone has got to have thought of this already.

Warning: Disney Ending Ahead

I never really went to Tom Sawyer's Island when I was a kid, mostly because there weren't any rides there. As a teenager, it proved a great place to play hide and go seek, as well as get some action in a dark cave. Other than that, I have consistently avoided Mark Twain, partly because I thought he wrote stories about gosh dang America, with saggy bottoms and toad catchin' contests, that is, stories of no real relevance to me.

I confess: Mark Twain schooled me.

And really, after today, I have to eat some of my words about the ponytail guy. He knows his stuff. He's quirky; okay, not my kind of quirky, but I can't hang it all on quirks. The discussion he led today about Huckleberry Finn blew my thoughts and ideas out of the water. Of course I did participate in class, and you know he WAS eyeing me like, yes, I know YOU must have something to say, front seat sitter and copious note taker, and the giving me the eye sitter. (And the eye being the eye of understanding, if you must know.) And every time I thought to bring up my idea, he said something amazing and I just didn't want to interrupt his flow, because it was so fascinating. I'm a surely humbled.

We read the passage in Huck Finn that has, I most certainly assume, become one of the more quoted passages of the book, concerning Jim and Huck. Huck plays a trick on Jim, and in the course, makes Jim feel ashamed for loving Huck. It's only a childish prank, but Jim's strong words rang out and went directly into my heart and hung there, like a dart, holding fast to me, and not giving up. What is it about us that we want to make the ones that love us feel foolish for doing so? Why do we try to hurt those that truly do care for us, and try to keep them at arms distance? We can do it with just as immature, nasty, and childish pranks as Huck's were, trying to turn love and affection and concern into a joke, where we have the upper hand. And, like Huck, we wonder why we are so awful lonesome.

So that really hit home. We didn't really discuss that in class; the discussion was centered on how these two characters grow, and there was a video we watched that defined literature as works that change us; by the time we finish them, we have grown in some way. I feel that in this respect, a close reading of Huckleberry Finn is very fine, and can achieve that change or growth in us as good as any other American Novel, maybe even better, because Clemens actually warns us not to take it too seriously, and not to throw too much stock into it. Although I initially sunk my teeth into Clemens's marvelous manuvering of satire, I ended up touched by his tenderness, and even if I don't end up writing about this author, I do feel like I've grown, and I thank him for that, and Huck, and Jim.