Dreams from My Father Ch11-14

During the course we have talked about stereotypes. Whether it was in the readings that we had, or real life scenarios. An instance in Obama’s book that I really appreciated (not sure if that’s the right word) him having in it was when he realizes that he is scared of the stereotypical bad boys on the south side of Chicago. Obama was asked earlier if he was scared, and he said he didn’t think so, but after he goes to yell at a group of boys for making too much noise, he realizes that he is frightened, “I turn back toward my apartment knowing that I’ve been both stupid and lucky, knowing that I am afraid after all.” (Obama 271). He realizes that in his location, and the time period he is in, that telling those boys to shut up, he could have easily been shot and killed. I like that Obama put this in his book, because unlike the other books we have read, it shows the other side, that even people of color can be fearful of their own race, and people of white skin can be fearful of their own race. In a lot of the narratives we read it seemed very white and black, whites feared blacks, blacks feared whites, and by telling us this story of the time he realizes he was scared, we see that it’s not always just about color of skin.

The formation of identity seemed to be an important concept, not just racially but acceptance of his history. His sister comes to visit him where he learns about what his father was really like in Kenya. How he put his own interests and pride first even when it wasn't for the good of the family. He was a drunk and did not take care of his children. His half brother Roy ran away and his sister eventually was able to go to boarding school to get away. This realization destroyed his previous image of the "old man", his father.  After this moment, he no longer knew how to think of his father. He had the image of his father of this wonderful man and the other side his half sister told him about. As he was questioning how he should identify his dead father, he began to question his own identity. Everything he did, he now wanted to make sure that he would not follow in his fathers path. He became even more determined to make something of himself as a way to separate himself from his father. He never truly accepts his identity, the past that comes with his last name. Although he has never lived in Kenya, that is where his name comes from. Someone asked Obama why he hadn't visited Kenya and he replied with he was scared with what he would find there. He visits his half brother in D.C and sees how his brother's life is falling apart, it seems as if he is becoming their father. Obama, in the back of his mind, always is trying to make sure that he defies his genes and never becomes like his father.  This running away from his father's history is a part of his identity.

Wy me?

In this chapter Precious asks her teacher a question, “wy Me?” (Why me) (89), and this question is one that is running through the readers mind. The narrative voice that is used in this novel is one that has a big impact on the reader. We watch Precious take this journey, and we get to see what is going on in her mind, her dreams, her terrors, and her reality. This narrative voice makes Precious more real to us, and everything she is going through. I constantly find myself asking why her, and why so many others. How is this allowed to go on in society, and why is she allowed to fall through the cracks. It really sheds light on the situations and horrors that some people go through. With Precious it’s not just one thing, it is awful things one after the other, being raped by her father at age 7, abused by her mother, getting AIDS because of her father raped her, these things that happen to her are horrendous. If just one of these things had happened we would still find it awful, but here she is having all of these things happen to her and she is only 16, and so she is truly wondering, why her…why did it have to be that way. Precious is a person that hasn’t given up yet, even with all of these terrible things that have happened to her, so I believe that she is a character that one day will stop asking “why me” and just continue on with her life as a strong woman.

One can already see that Precious has started to undergo the transformation to make her a strong woman.  When her mother comes and visits her, the interactions between Precious and her mom are much different than before. Her mom came to tell her that her father died of AIDS meaning Precious probably had it as well. Now that Precious's father is dead, her mother seems to have had a change of heart about Precious and her children; Precious's mom was ready to welcome them back in her home.  Precious rejected her mother and showed her that she was in control of the situation "I home here.Well I guess i better go see 'bout Abdul 'n do homework."(87) Precious just walks away from her mother, just like before. Here Precious has a sense of independence and control over her own life. She takes care of Abdul, is going to school and getting more of an education than she ever has before. If she left and went back home she would lose her independence and life would go back to as it was before. Precious's semi-independence is helping her gain a better sense of her identity leading to her becoming a strong woman. 

Push blog 1

In the past narrative’s that we have read we talked about how a slave was made, how a master was made, and how whites and blacks were conditioned to live. In this novel we see how Precious is conditioned as a slave, but to her parents. Her father and mother sexually use her whenever they please (12). Her mother also beats her for no reason at all, and controls her down to the food she eats (20). We discussed one of the ways that slave masters kept control of their slaves was through ignorance, and Precious is kept in the dark just as these slaves were. Precious is conditioned to believe that she is dumb, “ I wanna say I ain’ stupid but I know I am…” (14). Precious actually believes that she is no one, and that she is dumb. She is kept in the dark because she is stuck with her mother. Her mother controls everything that she does, and she has to get past her mother in order to become free. Precious knows that she has to get an education in order to get a job and to get out of her mother’s house, and that is what she wants the most. Precious knows what is happening to her isn’t right, but she can’t escape it. Hopefully with her want for education, she will get it, and she will be able to escape the horrors of her own home.

Precious wants to escape the horrors of her own home in order to create and identity for herself. So far, she has no true identity that she lives by. Her family situation controls her identity and by escaping she will be able to form a separate identity. Something interesting about her identity thus far is how others see her identity. Not only is she looked at by her race, as shown in our other books, but by other factors. Her education status, age, socio-economic standing, weight and sexuality are how other people also judge her identity. They see a 16 year old girl that is still in junior high, pregnant with her second child and is extremely overweight. She is 'feared" by others at school, hated by her mother at home, sexually abused by her father all of which help lead to her confusion about her own identity. 

Black Boy Blog

During Wright’s narrative, we witness a couple of times the dehumanization of blacks that they seem to accept. We see Shorty the elevator man say to a white man that he will do anything for a quarter. The way in which Shorty goes about getting the quarter by telling the white man to kick him for a quarter, to Richard seems disgusting, but he says that he has seen this scene enough that it doesn’t even make him angry anymore (228-229 Wright). Richard also encounters a situation like this where he is asked to fight for money. At first he is very against it because he doesn’t want to degrade himself, but he ends up giving in. Richard is filled with shame when he realizes what he has done; he gave into the stereotype that the whites had placed on him (242-243 Wright). After the fight Richard says he felt he had done something “unclean”, and he could never wash this from his memories. It is interesting to me that even though they are being dehumanized they still give into it. It’s sad that they are so hungry, or so in need of money that they basically have to sell themselves and be treated like animals. They get trapped in this never-ending cycle of doing anything they can for money.

Although Richard Wright gave into the stereotypes and was dehumanized by the whites that surrounded him,  he never lost his sense of identity and morals. He gave into the stereotype but he still had control over his mind. He knew that everything whites did was wrong and he gave in only to make money so that he could escape. In Chapter 13, Wright begins to further his "education" by starting to read books. Before this he always felt that society was wrong but know he knew. Wright began to see the white people in his life as characters from the books he was reading, making him see them in a new light. His mind was truly free now and any chance he would get he would read newspapers and books. The people around him began to notice a change in him. The books made everything so more concrete that was harder to ignore everything that was going on around him. Wright still followed the stereotypes in order to keep his job, but he was a different person because of the knowledge that books provided. 

Black Boy Ch1-3

In his novel Black Boy, we see Richard Wright develop from childhood to adulthood in a span of about five years. In his development we also see his change in attitude towards whites and towards blacks. In his early years, Richard had trouble grasping the concept that whites and blacks are “different”; “Though I had long known that there were people called “white” people, it had never meant anything to me emotionally. To me they were merely people like other people…” (23 Wright). The innocence that Wright has at this point in his life seems to foreshadow how awful it will be when he discovers that the rest of his world doesn’t see all people as equals. As we read further in the novel we see Wright begin to change how he sees whites, and how he sees blacks. Wright talks about how he began to play the role that he was given, “…the white boys and the black boys, began to play our traditional racial roles as though we had been born to them…” (83). Through this sentence seeing themselves as less than whites, and hating them seems like it was destiny, which maybe it was because of how they were conditioned growing up. This brings us back to the idea of how is a slave/master made. How is racial tension created? Is it conditioned? Or is it destined to happen (especially in this time period).

In the first 3 chapters of Black Boy, it was interesting to think about the different gender roles that were present. Black Boy shows us different gender roles at the beginning than Jacobs and Douglass. In both Jacobs and Douglass it was men that would beat slaves and have power to discipline. In Jacobs, there was the angry mistress who would try to discipline Linda but in reality she had little power over her. In Black Boy Richard is frequently beaten, sometimes close to death, by his mother and grandma. Richard’s mom and grandma hold all the power in the household unlike typical families. It shows how in the absence of a male figure,  the women often have to take up the roles of both men and women. Although his grandma was married, she still was in charge of disciplining him. Since this takes place in Jim Crow South, it  can show us how some roles and ideas changed after the civil war ended. But how did this reversal of roles come about? Did the destruction of the "old south" really create a new gender roles or is this simply an anomaly?

 

Jacobs Blog Ch XII-XX Kristin

Chapter XIII is about religion and its role in slavery. This chapter reaffirms that religion is used as a tool in slavery, as previously shown in Douglass.  A quote that sums up the role of religion and slavery is: “Ole Satin’s church is here below; Up to God’s free church I hope to go” (pg. 75)

In Douglass’ narrative, his master becomes religious and becomes crueler as a result. In Jacobs', the slaveholders use religion to “brainwash” slaves, especially through sermons. Preaching that God sees slaves' every move even if their masters may not catch them misbehaving, for example, teaches those slaves that they should obey their masters and mistresses. If they disobey their masters on earth, they have disobeyed their master in heaven. Religion was thus used as tool to instigate fear among slaves and stop them from rebelling and trying to escape. 

Jacobs reinforces the idea that Douglass presents to us in his autobiography, but she also shows that there were some in the south who didn’t use religion for that purpose. When Jacobs runs away, she is eventually taken to a white woman’s home and hidden from her master. This white woman keeps her a secret even though doing so could ruin her and her family. In response to this good deed, Linda says, “For that deed of Christian womanhood, may God bless her forever!” This indicates that religion may have been a positive force for slaves rather than a way to reinforce the institution of slavery.  True Christian ideals were still present somewhere in the South. 

Effects of Narrative Voice (Jacobs XII-XX) Joy

Harriet Jacobs’ narrative is powerful in many ways, but one way that may be more powerful is that she makes a personal connection with the reader. By using a voice that easily allows connection, she makes a bigger impact with what she is saying. Jacobs is constantly questioning the reader and making sure that they are “listening” to what she is saying. She causes the reader to feel a certain attachment to her, and to want to root for her to get out of this wretched situation. Jacobs’ narrative voice does make a certain connection with women more so than men. As we know, this narrative was written in hopes that the women of the north would learn of all the atrocities happening to slave women. Jacobs uses her voice, and her feminism to entice the reader into continuing the narrative, we feel the pain that she feels as she is separated from her children, and the joy she feels when she realizes that they are finally free (139-140 Jacobs). By talking about the pains that her children have to go through, and having to leave her own children in order for them to be free, the reader sees the strength that she has, and I know that I wonder if I would have the same strength. She connects with the women readers through the horrors that happened to her that no man could understand, no matter how hard they tried. Men can sympathize for her, but women can empathize with her, which makes this narrative more powerful for women.

I found an article comparing and discussing Douglass’s narrative to Jacobs narrative:

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/freedom/1609-1865/essays/douglassjacobs.htm