Month: April 2020

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4/6 Discussion Questions

My first question is about the sea and the role it plays in The Sea at Dauphin.  We’ve encountered other stories of great losses at sea, in Riders and John Redding that seemed to speak to loss of place and community.  In this play, Afa remarks that the sea forgets.  How does that fit with the sea as we’ve seen it in those other works? Does the sea forget, or does it just not care?

In “The Schooner Flight” Walcott talks about naming and mimicry saying “we live like our names and you would have to be colonial to know the difference.”How does identity play into naming and memory and what pain can be stored in names as well?

How does the representation Creole in The Sea at Dauphin compare to other representations of dialect we’ve encountered? What (and whose) histories are encoded in language and its literary representations?

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4/6 Discussion Questions

How do Afa and Shabine compare? Do both reflect Walcott’s identity and story in a similar way? What are their motivations to go to Sea? How does the play versus poetry/epic form reflect their main characters?

What do you make of the circularity of Sea at Dauphin? The play begins and ends with Afa preparing to go to sea. What does this suggest about the nature of the sea and Afa’s relationship to it?

How does Shabine represent torn identity? Do some parts of his identity come through more than others?

 

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Discussion Questions (4/6)

What is the significance of Creole language in our discussions of the transatlantic?

Over the course of this semester, the sea has continuously taken lives. Why is the sea so important to the two cultures we are examining and, in The Sea at Dauphin, why does Jules still want to go to the sea? What is the allure?

In section 9 of The Schooner Flight, Shabine says, “Progress is history’s dirty joke.” What is the relationship between history and progress?

What is happening with Maria Concepcion? I have some thoughts about her name but I’m not entirely sure of the situation with her.

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4/6 Discussion Questions

  1.  How does the presence of the Caribbean in The Sea at Dauphin tie back to previous descriptions of the ocean as a place of danger, such as Riders to the Sea or John Redding Heads to Sea?
  2. How does Walcott’s status as a Caribbean writer, made up of several diverse backgrounds, echo the searches for identity, such as in the Harlem Renaissance?
  3. Does Walcott’s critique of religion get across the same critiques as Hurston’s, or are the two different?
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Derek Walcott Presentation and Discussion Questions 4/6

Derek Walcott Presentation Video (Updated link–might take a few minutes to load)

A link to the PowerPoint that I used in the video

 

What do you make of Walcott’s understanding of his own identity? Did you see the hybridity that so many have pointed out?  How does language factor into his identity and his works? How and what do you think Walcott’s identity translates to the poems? Are the main characters supposed to reflect his own identity?  

What does it mean for Shabine to leave Maria in “The Schooner Flight?” What did she symbolize and what effect did his constant recalling of her have? Did you see any similarities between her and Hounakin’s wife from The Sea at Dauphin?

The Sea at Dauphin is said to be influenced by Synge’s Riders to the Sea. How do the works compare? What are the similarities and differences in their treatment of religion and the way that they describe the sea? Do you see any connection between Synge’s and Walcott’s identities?

What do these works accomplish? How do they compare to the prior things we have been studying? What have they done to further your understanding of the Black and Green Atlantic?

I have a few more questions, but I will save them until Wednesday because they focus more heavily on Heaney’s piece.

 

 

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A Response to the Critics Who Hated UpTight!

Who has the authority to determine what one is allowed to use to describe their experiences? In class this week, we looked at how film critics slammed UpTight! for its choice to adapt an Irish story to the African American context. I’d like to respond to these critics with the argument that The Informer is not an exclusively Irish story, as it lacks the foundation in Irish history. Since the movie is not specifically Irish, anyone is free to adapt it. UpTight!, on the other hand, takes The Informer’s frame and develops it into a specifically Black story.

While the book that it is based on is clearly founded in its Irish roots, The Informer does not carry an effective amount of Irish identity and could be about any culture. The director himself was actually Irish American, not Irish. There is a vagueness in identity present from the very beginning of the movie, as the Judas reference fails to place the reader within a specifically Irish context. Judas has a clear connection to Christianity and works as a parallel to Gypo, but the movie’s main focus is not on that of religion. While it depicted some of the culture and suffering of the Irish people, it sacrificed the opportunity to make a larger political statement and tie itself more firmly in the Irish identity in the hopes of appealing to a wider audience. In failing to tackle the specific Irish history, The Informer allows a passive audience. Americans are not involved in Irish life so they may not know what is going on or make the connections. Being an Irish American, the director would also have been lacking in experience and understanding of the Irish people. The Informer truly could have been about any time period or any people; it did not seem specific to the Irish or educate the audience about them on more than a superficial and basic level. The movie and its structure actually reminded me much of old gangster movies, which I associate with a more Italian identity.   

If The Informer is not a specifically Irish film, then why isn’t it fair to adapt it to the African American experience? Through the African American’s use of this frame, they altered it in order to showcase their own specific identity. Unlike The Informer, it could not have been based anywhere. The audience’s first introduction to UpTight! is with real footage from MLK’s funeral and the African American response to it. MLK has a clear connection to the black political moment that is what the movie is focused on. By starting with MLK, the movie is committing to telling the story of a specifically and unmistakably African American experience founded in reality. As the movie continues, layers are added to more fully depict what life looks like for African Americans and their broader struggles. Those involved hoped to use this film as a way to educate and gain support for their cause.  It was produced by many people involved in the movements and you can really see their dedication to the project and drawing attention to the injustices and struggles. The film showcases a recognizable setting for Americans, as it takes place in the very real time and place that they are living. As a result of the layers and strong foundation in the history of African Americans, the viewers become more active and should have a response to what they see on screen and its relation to the world they are living in. Unfortunately, this film was never able to achieve the full glory and recognition that it deserved. 

The critics’ excuses for why the film should not have been made are cop-out responses. There are many examples of problematic comparisons that the Irish have made with the blacks that have been widely used and accepted, such as the phrase “wage slavery,” so adapting a film that’s arguably not even Irish should not be the thing that crosses the line. It’s not as if the makers of UpTight! were trying to ignore the fact that it was a remake, it was something they were upfront about. Even if one considers The Informer to be a strongly Irish film, the comparisons being made are not degrading to the Irish or their struggles. Therefore, the critics’ reasoning is faulty and seems to be more of an excuse to degrade the impact of UpTight!— a film that undeniably contributes to the African American story and it is a true shame that it has been mostly forgotten.

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Punishment

We are currently reading Toni Morrison’s Beloved in one of my classes and an image we discussed relates to this class so well. Super general plot – The story follows Sethe who escapes with her children from a plantation in Kentucky. In our class discussion we talked about how Sethe’s womb can be compared to the Atlantic Ocean. When Sethe’s water breaks in the story, the pool of water is compared directly to the ocean. We discussed how like the Atlantic, the womb delivers babies to a life in slavery. The novel likens the ocean – the womb – to a grave. I thought this was really interesting to think about in our discussions about the Atlantic world. Beloved considers that the Atlantic Ocean and its history is so deeply rooted in Sethe that she carries it when she is carrying her baby.

Seamus Heaney’s Punishment was a difficult read for me this week for multiple reasons. One is the question also addressed by Julian in his blog post about whether Heaney’s perspective about the continuity of suffering gives reason for the one inflicting suffering. Another reason was Heaney’s description of the female bog bodies – this was really difficult to read. He sexualized these tortured bodies, describing their nipples and naked front. He calls the bodies “My poor scapegoat” and say that he “almost love[d]” the woman. Heaney also shows understanding with the exact revenge wanted by the perpetrator of the act, showing his want for power and ownership over the bog body.

Heaney wrote poetry at a critical time in Ireland’s history. It is important to study and remember The Troubles and specifically the bog bodies. But in my opinion, Heaney’s narration and the way he wrote history in this poem is disgusting. Writing about the women who were tarred in feathered in a sexualizing way is problematic and abhorrent. What are other’s thoughts? Do you see value to Heaney’s poems in remembering and capturing the history of The Troubles and the bog bodies taking into account the way they are described? Did you find a similar difficulty in reading?

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“I Forgot Something”: Community and Survival in “Uptight”

In The Informer and Uptight, both main characters display great guilt at their respective betrayals of friends and subsequent destruction of community.  Yet, The Informer’s ending of religious absolution and penitence is changed significantly in the ending of Uptight in which Tank receives no absolution and symbolically dies where he stood up to white oppression.  This major change is an important adaptation in the meta-narratives of both films; whereas The Informer ends with Gypo dying, but achieving forgiveness and exclaiming Frankie’s name in joy, suggesting a kind of mend between the two and the community, Uptight ends with Tank being shot, falling, and symbolically being downtrodden by the rubble he used to work with, suggesting an unresolved break in the community, as well as the continued debates of violence or peaceful means of protest.  With its nihilistic, more dour ending, Uptight shows that while there are similarities between the two films and they reference towards movements and events across the Atlantic, each group cannot compare itself to the other, also seen in Transatlantic.

Even thought Gypo mentions several times that he has fallen on hard times and doesn’t have much money, “Uptight” makes a point to show the desperation of Tank as well as other members of his community, most notably Laurie played  by Ruby Dee.  By piling up these external pressures upon Tank, Dassin and the writers suggest that Tank’s betrayal is the only way for him to attempt to get by, although it means separating himself from his community by killing Johnny.  The character of Daisy also represents this breaking of community, whose work as a police informant splits himself between membership with Johnny, Tank, and their community and the police force, as well as first introducing the idea of ratting out Johnny to the police.  This dilemma haunts Tank throughout the film, as he is already fighting to survive before he must hide from his own community because of his betrayal.  Once he turns Johnny in and he is murdered by the police, Tank goes on a quick downward spiral, tortured by his treason against his people and his quest for survival.  His own search for refuge and forgiveness echoes broader black concerns at the time, such as social belonging and upward progress.  The scene of the black Vietnam veterans echoes the growing tension of the black community, both against the oppressive white majority and also among themselves in their desire for successful protest.  Tank’s later scene with BG also refers back to this impossibility for the black man to survive in this increasingly hostile world.  When Tank begs “I got no place to go,” and BG only responds, “Then die!” this both foreshadows Tank’s own death after his betrayal excises him from the black community and also shows that it is perhaps preferable to die than to live within the place under the oppression of the white majority forces.  Once Tank is finally confronted in the steel mill, he is shot and killed in the same place where he worked for years, trapped toiling away and unable to resist prejudice and mistreatment.  Even when he did originally lash out, it caused him to get in trouble with the police, leading him to alcoholism, preventing him from helping Johnny.  This endless circle of oppression shows the bleak determinism of the black experience in the 1960’s: one can live in a system of oppression or die trying to escape.

Despite its basic description as a remake of reimagining of “The Informer,” “Uptight” and its world show a much more complex social setting, with the inner community of African Americans in the film already split early within the film on issues such as the most effective way to protest.  The more depressing ending of Dassin’s film captures the difficulty of black life immediately after the assassination of MLK and the idea of peaceful protest: either suffering or dying trying to function outside the system, Uptight‘s complex and difficult ending shows the fragile ideas of community and the elusive survival of everyday life under oppression.

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“But…”

I think that this past week, by looking at the different ways that both the African American community and the Irish community use the same coping techniques and how they gesture towards each other over history, I’ve gained an even deeper understanding of how they seem to be connected. When I went back over my previous discussion questions for Monday and Wednesday, I was struck again by how the questions I asked were so similar: is there something wrong when one side takes a coping/protesting method from the other side, and uses it for their own struggles?

 

I was rather conflicted about this question. When I was looking at Seamus Heaney’s poem “Strange Fruit”, and how it was directly borrowing from the song “Strange Fruit”, I thought that the answer was yes. There is something wrong with this instance of borrowing, though it was hard to place at first. And then when I asked the same question about UpTight as a remake of The Informer, I came up with the opposite answer. There was nothing wrong with this borrowing. Again, I couldn’t tell at first just what made this appropriate, and the previous instance inappropriate. After our class discussion, however, I think I may have figured it out. There seems to be a kind of “but…” statement attached to every similar circumstance that we can see between the two cultures.

 

The Irish were oppressed in their home country, but… they had a means of escape in America.

The Irish were not considered white, but… they were able to transition into whiteness over time.

The Irish were maltreated, abused, and considered inferior, but… they were never slaves.

 

There is no “but” statement on the African American side of the transatlantic. This lack of a “but” makes it far easier for African Americans to gesture toward the Irish as an example, but harder for the Irish to gesture toward African Americans without taking this somewhat out of proportion.