AA Lit Blog

            The White Boy Shuffle has been one of the strangest books I’ve read, but in its strangeness it has forced me to re-evaluate some things I have always accepted. The first big concept it made me reconsider is “collective self-esteem.” Linking one’s one self-esteem with the success of a sports team is something I’d always taken for granted. Everyone around me had done it as long as I can remember. Gunnar’s de-familiarized description, talking about how he has everyone watching hanging by a thread, was pretty mind-blowing as a result.             Gunnar’s experience also forced me to consider how success might not always “feel good.” Gunnar did not have to struggle to succeed, and seemed to be giving minimal effort in basketball, and even in poetry. His talents don’t feel special to him, they’re just naturally what he can do; he would literally have to struggle to do...

One of the most striking features of Toni Morrison’s Beloved is the fact that the story is told out of order. This is also one of the most confusing features of the novel. A reader of the novel might ask why she chose such a feature. What effect does it have? How would the story be different if it were told in order? If Beloved were rewritten in chronological order, the biggest change would be finding out about Sethe’s act of violence much sooner than we do in the original. Learning about it sooner rather than later puts the audience much more in the position of the townspeople who rejected Sethe and were terrified of her. Over the course of the book leading up to the revelation of Sethe’s deed, the reader is in her head and learns of the horrors at sweet home, the work she went through to escape, and the almost frighteningly strong love she has for her children. Even Paul D, who is much more in the reader’s position, is hesitant to stay around Sethe after he learns what she did. C...

             At the end of our discussions of Their Eyes Were Watching God, we went over Richard Wright’s criticism of the novel. It seemed nearly unanimous that Wright failed to read Hurston’s book for what it was and “missed the point.” However, one criticism seemed to warrant more discussion: the comparison of the novel’s depiction of life in the muck to a minstrel show.             The most uncomfortable and “minstrel-y” part of the story may have been the view of work out on the farms. The characters are generally shown having a good time and goofing off when the boss isn’t looking. Hurston may seem to gloss over the challenges and hardships workers in this situation undoubtedly had to face. However, Wright’s criticism seemed to have an idea that the novel should have been entirely about the problems caused by white supremacy. Hurston, on the other hand, wrote a book depicting black cultur...

            One of the most difficult questions to ask in the early chapters of Their Eyes Were Watching God has been whether to trust Teacake. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say my first instinct was to trust him. He was far nicer to Janie than either Joe Starks or Logan, letting Janie be herself and seemingly putting an emphasis on her happiness. However, he has a “slipperiness” about him that throws into question whether one should trust him.             An even more important question than this one, however, is whether it matters if Teacake is trustworthy. In class we discussed a similar question when she left Logan for Joe Starks. Janie’s own sentiments, we decided, indicated that she would have left Logan regardless of the presence of Joe. A similar case, I believe, can be made for Teacake. Janie’s relationship with Teacake is an expression of her growing personal free...

            Chapter 19 of Invisible Man was a wild ride of humor, discomfort, and silliness. The funniest moment of this chapter for me was when the narrator asks, “But we’re going to discuss brotherhood and ideology, aren’t we? (Ellison 411)” At this point, I couldn’t help but be reminded of a whole category of memes; they feature an image of a displeased person with captions like, “when she invites you over for beyblades but then she starts taking off her clothes.” The narrator’s cluelessness is best shown by this line. Unfortunately, the woman moves on to talk about the narrator and his speaking. She uses words like “primitive,” “forceful,” and says he has, “tom-toms beating in his voice” (Ellison 413). In using these descriptors for the narrator, she shows that despite claiming to be part of a post-racial/anti-racism movement, she may be holding onto some strange ideas about the black people: that they are inherently more “pri...

The novels Invisible Man and Native Son are seemingly written in conversation. Scenes throughout Invisible Man feel like responses to the events and ideas of Native Son. One example which is most obviously a response to Native Son , however, and one which we discussed in class, was the narrator’s meeting with the brotherhood.   In Native Son, when Bigger is in the car with Jan and Mary, they ask him to sing “his people’s” songs and talk about how “his people” love singing. The scene is extremely uncomfortable, especially for modern readers. Ellison’s scene is almost the inverse of this. When someone in the brotherhood asks the narrator to sing, and insists that, “all colored people sing,” he is carried off, and they apologize profusely for his behavior. However, the narrator is still left wondering how the “asking someone to sing” dynamic works between the races. These two scenes contrast the reactions to asking a black person to sing a spiritual. On one hand, it can feel pa...

Today’s discussion made me consider the parallels between Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and A Poem for Players by Al Young. Both works explore the idea that black people can be “invisible” to society. They aren’t literally invisible, and it’s not that everyone ignores them. Ellison and Young’s idea of invisibility is that many black people are pigeonholed into preconceived roles that are “acceptable” for them, and that they are not seen for who they are. Ellison’s narrator is unnamed. He is perceived by some as being nameless, for example, Mr. Norton. Norton doesn’t see him as a full person, but rather a “part of [his] destiny.” Despite Norton having a favorable opinion of the narrator, and believing that he has the potential to succeed, he still doesn’t “see” him. Worse than Norton were the people in chapter 1. They certainly saw him as less than a person, and simply thought it was funny to have “the smart boy from the local high school” come out and fight for their entertainment....