Week 11

I agree with Toni Morrison when it comes to the significance of African American literature. It is interesting that an entire culture’s art could be systematically denied a place in a country’s literary canon. I’m not sure if it happened for purely racist reasons, although there could very well be elements of racism intruding into the fray. More likely, the perception of African American literature is an extension of slave writings, or writings about slavery. This is perceived as not having the “universal” quality that so often gets applied to white writers. Critics claim that works concerned with slavery are too focused, and too few readers can relate. This is silly. How many inner-city black kids can relate to a stuffy Jane Austen novel or even James Joyce? They are just as excluded from white canon as a member of the high academic community might be from a gritty slave narrative.

The point is that writing is a form of expression, and as such should be judged on its own merits. I think the significance of African American literature is to give a voice to those who traditionally have struggled to find one. That’s what makes the study of African American literature particularly interesting. Not only have these authors had to struggle with the typical demands of writing, but they have also had to combat a system which works to keep them silenced. I hesitate to use the term “alternative” to describe a body of work like this (it’s an alternative to what, exactly?), but I have greatly enjoyed the discovery of authors who would rarely ever get mentioned in an ordinary “American” literature class, and hope to go on to read many more African American authors. The work can compare with any of the traditional canonical authors, in my opinion.

A little update

I missed the Week 6 post, as it was around Spring Break, and I got confused as to due dates, and didn’t even have internet access over the break. I’ve made up for that post now, although you may have to scroll down or visit a previous page to find it.

For the Week 9 post, I basically forgot to do it, being under a mountain of work for my other classes. It’s also down a bit–some scrolling may be required.

The Week 10 (impact of slavery) post is on time, and should be right beneath this one.

Finally, I never had a chance to respond to a question about how I chose Audre Lorde as the subject of my profile from a few weeks ago. Fall semester 2007 I took a course, W St 369, called Queer Identities in Contemporary Cultures, taught by Professor Linda Heidenreich. It was a very enlightening course, in which we read, among others, Langston Hughes, and the interesting and lovable Tatiana de la Tierra. Near the beginning of the semester, we read an essay by Audre Lorde, as well as her famous work, “Poetry Is Not a Luxury.” I was fascinated by her insistence that words can change the world, especially for queer writers and artists struggling to establish their own space in a mostly hetero-normative society. I found Lorde to be a very righteous woman, however we didn’t spend enough time with her in class to discuss the more controversial aspects of her writing–specifically, the backlash of her attacks on white feminists, and other run-ins she had with her peers.

Slavery permeates the work

I suppose I hadn’t given much thought to how slavery would exist in the texts of this class. Had I spent some time before the semester trying to picture the works we would read, and what role slavery would play in informing the literature, I imagine I would have guessed “an important one.” Nearing the end of the semester, I see now just how important that role is. Every novel we have read has dealt directly (Kindred, The Known World) or indirectly (Quicksand, Going to Meet the Man, Gabriel’s Story) with slavery and its effects. What I mean is that whether or not a work’s story is directly tied up in slavery, there is always an existing specter in the background.

I think this has much to do with the history of African Americans in America. The reason African Americans exist in America as a race is slavery. This means that slave origins can never fully be extracted from the African-American experience. A sad reality, but nevertheless one that these authors must work within the confines of.

For example, in Nella Larsen’s Quicksand, Helga Crane feels the urge to leave the South, owing to her view that the people around her aren’t as cultured, modern, or cosmopolitan as she is. Perhaps she sees those around her as too close to slavery, instead of the intellectual, worldly being she imagines herself to be. So she moves to New York, and Denmark, and back to New York, all the while trying to find a place where like-minded individuals will embrace her. She never does, and eventually ends up in a rural town, married to a preacher and surrounded by almost slave-minded black women. Her depression reaches a record high, and she wastes away producing a string of babies for her husband. I see Helga as too focused on rejecting society and focusing too much on trying to be an idealized version of herself, rather than truly examining who she is, and being okay with it. This is a sort of double consciousness, except that her subjective view of herself is flawed. This may have been a bit of a digression, I fear…

Obviously Kindred and The Known World are more focused on slavery, setting their stories in the early- to mid-1800s. In Kindred especially, Octavia Butler presents with a woman, Dana, who has no sense of connection to her past. By transporting her back in time, Butler could perhaps be suggesting that we are now so far removed from slavery that we’ve lost touch with the effects it continues to have on our society. Only by forcing Dana to experience it for herself is a deeper understanding and appreciation gained. An extreme example, for sure, but Butler’s point is well-taken.

Make-up for Week 9

Edward P. Jones’s The Known World is fascinating. First of all, I might as well address the obvious observations about the writing and narrative style. Jones does not employ a linear, plot-driven style, instead choosing to focus on a sort of all-at-once, overhead view exploring themes and connections. Upon beginning the book, I found this approach somewhat off-putting. Directly after finishing Octavia Butler’s first-person, heavily plot-driven Kindred, it took some time to adjust to the differences in storytelling style. In fact, I was essentially lost in Jones’s narrative for the first 40-50 pages before finally getting a handle on where and when I was while reading.

I appreciate the way that The Known World is set up. I find the God-like, aerial, all-time-exists-at-once-but-we’ll-only-focus-on-one-thing-at-a-time narration unique and well realized. At first, I was horribly confused as to how Jones had won a Pulitzer Prize for this novel. It wasn’t until I was about halfway through or so that things began to come together, and the themes and connections between the characters started to show themselves more clearly.

I liken The Known World to a grand-scale, sweeping, epic film, in the vein of The English Patient or Lawrence of Arabia in terms of scope and vision. Jones seeks to give us the biggest picture of slavery that he can, through the use of an entire region of the country. I find it particularly interesting how whenever we’re introduced to a new character, Jones quickly (or sometimes not so quickly) diverts from the main story to give us details on that character’s life. That can include the story of their death, or something interesting and telling from their life. The sense of community is reinforced strongly through these digressions, which often include other characters we’re already familiar with.

Overall I was extremely impressed by Jones’s work. I can’t really recall another novel I’ve read that told its story in this manner.

Make-up for Week 6

Paul Laurence Dunbar was an African-American poet active around the turn of the 20^th century. His parents were former slaves, his father being a veteran of the American Civil War. Significantly, he was a standout student in college in Dayton, Ohio, working as both class president and editor of the student newspaper, both achievements almost unheard of for a black man at that time.

An interesting aspect of Dunbar’s work is his use of both traditional American English, and African-American dialects. He later grew skeptical of the novelty of his slangy, phonetic, dialect poems, and became weary of being pigeonholed. His work outside of these novel poems encompassed a graceful use of language in giving a voice to slavery.

For an essay in my English 373 class, I examined one of his poems in particular, “We Wear the Mask.” It is a fantastic example of Du Bois’s notion of double consciousness, although Du Bois would not write of the idea until almost ten years later in The Souls of Black Folk. Dunbar’s poem describes the “mask” that blacks wear to hide the suffering they experience. White society perceives blacks as characters in a minstrel show, dancing and referring to whites as “massa.” The poem beautifully gives us insight into how false this is.

Sadly, Dunbar was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1900, shortly after taking a job at the Library of Congress. He moved to Colorado with his wife to reduce his stress during his final years. He died at the woefully young age of 33 in 1906. He is interred in his hometown of Dayton, Ohio.