Author: mluck

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Christianity in Literature

I was thinking about my initial reading of John Redding Goes to Sea and how I saw John as a Christ figure. When reading, the description of John Redding’s body floating in the water stood out to me as reflecting the death of Jesus because of the positioning of his body, his torn clothes, and his blood mixing in with the water. In our discussion on Wednesday, I couldn’t come up with a reason for why I picked out this image and asked a question regarding Christianity and Biblical references. I think part of the reason is that I have been trained in past classes to look for the Christ figure while reading, since it has been brought up in so many discussions I have had before. During my freshman year of high school, Simon from Lord of the Flies was identified as a Christ figure. Same with Santiago from Old Man and The Sea my sophomore year and Jim Casy from Grapes of Wrath my junior year of high school. Just a few weeks ago in my American Lit class, one of my classmates brought up the question of whether Benjy from The Sound and the Fury could be seen as a Christ figure. Christ figures have popped up everywhere for me in my past English classes, which is why it is something I look for when reading.

There’s a danger, I think, that comes with searching for Christ figures in literature. They are usually the character in the story that makes sacrifices, is good with children, and/or experiences physical suffering. By assigning these characters the title of the Christ figure, readers accentuate the importance and power of the character’s sacrifices and morality. The issue with this – it excludes characters in literature who are women, and it excludes non-Christian readers, or those who have no exposure to the Christian religion, from a full reading of the text and the author’s intention in the crafting of a character.

Turning to Zora Neale Hurston, we discussed on Monday the lack of reverence for religion in Mules and Men. This can be seen in stories like the tale of why the church split, as Charlie explains that Christ glued together eleven rocks to build his church on. Hurston’s folklore involved a satire of Christianity as the religion of colonialism, which was imposed on African Americans who were deemed “never ready” to accept religion. Taking this point from our Mules and Men discussion, I identified John Redding as a possible Christ figure in Wednesday’s reading due to the heavy influence religion, or the critique and satire of it, had in other works of Hurston’s. Christianity plays an important role in the history and folklore that Hurston is attempting to preserve and share through her writing.

So, I guess the question I am asking of myself and others here is what is the danger of automatically identifying good male characters as Christ figures in literature? How can we reconcile this with the intention of authors and the influence Christianity has on so many works of literature? I know this is a lot broader than the specific readings we discussed this week, but the question of why so many of us posed questions about Christianity really stuck with me. Why do we (I) instinctively read this way?

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3/25 Discussion

Does the description of John Redding’s body floating in the water reflect Jesus’ death? (arms outstretched, torn clothing, struck by wood, mixing blood and water) Is John Redding a Christ figure? What point could Hurston be making about Christianity here?

Does the cakewalk in Color Struck change the way you view the cakewalk in In Dahomey? How do the plays differ in the way they preserve the cakewalk?

 

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3/23 Discussion

How does the significance of the folklore stories in Mules and Men change without surrounding context? Is the time and place of each story indispensable?

Are the tales in Mules and Men a form of mimicry? Throughout the story these tales are referred to as “lies”. What kind of feeling does this create around the stories?

How does the question of originality in “Characteristics of Negro Expression” reflect the idea of the inability to create art for the sake of art, as discussed with “In Dahomey”?

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Art for the Sake of Art

Can you produce art for the sake of art? This is a tough question to deal with in regard to “In Dahomey”. The play’s original intention was asserted by its creators as a performance “written without any other object than to amuse.” “In Dahomey” is meant to be a lively, silly play put on by an all-black cast entering the minstrelsy scene. But, meaning and take-aways can be seen all throughout the play in the treatment of Me Sing, the back to Africa plot, depictions of the obstacles for African Americans in the north and south, and the theme of ownership (and the list continues!). Purpose, theme, and intentionality can be seen all throughout the plot of “In Dahomey”, but the importance of its art form is implicit. Being the first performance by an all-black cast meant the play could not just be for the sake of putting on a play. “In Dahomey” had immense importance, marking the entrance of black performers into the art scene.

How should we read “In Dahomey” if the intention of the creators is for entertainment, rather than reading into issues and arguments that the play presents? I believe that intentionality of the writer is important in the reading of plays, but the impact that their writings will have is unknown to them. It is the audience’s response that shapes the meaning of the play – isn’t that who and what performances are intended for?

The inability for “In Dahomey” to be any other wacky performance exhibits the burden of representation that was placed on the shoulders of this first all-black cast. This performance would reflect on the respectability of all black actors to follow, which is a great responsibility and pressure. Despite the controversial contents of its plot, “In Dahomey’s” importance cannot be forgotten, as it created the first step for black actors in the performance scene.

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Trapped

Bodies bear history. This is the idea that stuck with me the most this week. In “The Octoroon”, Zoe’s body bears the history of sexual abuse and racial encounter. She is the manifestation of crisis, violence, and liminality. Viewing Zoe from this lens is trapping. We are born with one body – Zoe cannot change the circumstances around her birth or the history that her body represents. Her body bears a story that cannot be simply erased.

Zoe feels trapped in her body, in her state as “The Octoroon”. She is disgusted by the impurity in her blood. She feels liminality in her identity, and to have power over her body she commits suicide. Zoe feels no other option.

This past semester I took a course in human genetics. We studied the concept of epigenetics, or how our DNA changes after we are born based on our environment. For example, identical twins, whose genetic makeup comes from the same egg, can have differences in their genome later in life based on their environment. This poses an interesting question to how the octoroon would be perceived today in the context of new innovations in science. We are learning so much about how to control and change our DNA, which Zoe feels so trapped by.

Another concept in epigenetics that focuses on bodies carrying history is how changes in our parent’s DNA can be passed down to us. It was long thought that changes in DNA throughout someone life were not passed onto children. But, it was found through studies of a famine in Holland during World War II, that changes in DNA caused by malnutrition were passed onto successive generations. I think epigenetics is interesting to look at concerning “The Octoroon”, which is so focused on the makeup of Zoe’s DNA and how it defines her status.

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Increments of Gray

“Dawn unlocked the morning with increments of gray”

This week’s piece, Transatlantic, focuses on the in-between state of Douglass in Ireland. Douglass escaped slavery in America and experiences a sense of freedom in Ireland. In Dublin, he is waited upon by a footman, eats fancy meals, and tours the country giving speeches. Yet, he still feels like a captive – he is constantly watched by Webb and paraded around Ireland like a show-horse. McCann writes about Douglass’ self-reflection of this gray area: “He knew now what had brought him here – the chance to explore what it felt like to be free and captive at the same time” (85). This position gave Douglass power and authority in speaking against slavery because he knows what it is like to be both free and captive. He relates what the Irish cannot –  “To be in total bondage to everything,” Douglass says, “even the idea of one’s own peace” (85). But, this in-between state also creates a lack of control for Douglass over his life, and a lack of trust and uncertainty. How can you be truly free if you are wanted for capture? How can you be truly free when your family is still in bondage?

In my American Lit class we are reading The Sound and the Fury. This novel also deals with the deterioration of identity in an in-between state. Specifically, the character of Quinten relates the loss of power while being trapped in gray area. Quinten’s narrative in the story begins to fall apart when he feels a lack of control in his relationship with his sister, Caddy. Quinten narrates, “I seemed to be lying neither asleep nor awake looking down a long corridor or gray halflight where all stable things had become shadowy” (170). Douglass and Quinten are examples of the uncertainty and restlessness that come with a half-way state. Quinten, like Douglass, feels a lack of stability in his life and relates it through the use of the color gray. This builds upon one of the central ideas in class of transforming identity and belonging. In transitional states, where can we find a home?

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Gulliver and Belonging

This week I thought a lot about Gulliver as a reputable and trustworthy character. While relatively neutral in part one, I found Gulliver to be very unlikeable in part four. This was mostly due to his rejection of his family and all of humanity as he comes to believe he is above them after his time with the Houyhnhnms. Is this forgivable? Gulliver spurns his wife and children to the point of only letting his wife eat all the way across the table from him. He cannot stand the smell of his wife or the sight of his children. But, Gulliver rejects them because he has no home. He is constantly on the move, feeling out of place where-ever he ends up. With the Lilliputians, he is a giant unable to be sustained by their society. To the Houyhnhnms, he is a yahoo – a kind of pet for them to play and converse with but never fully relate to. While this does not fully excuse Gulliver’s rejection of his family and the rest of humanity, it helps me understand why he makes this ultimate decision. If he never feels at home, how can he reintegrate himself within society without a certain sense of trust and companionship?

Gulliver is very similar to Helga Crane in Quicksand. Quicksand is about a young biracial woman who struggles to find a home as she moves between America and Denmark. After being rejected by her European relatives, Helga moves schools, communities, and countries, always feeling as though she is in-between or out of place. She doesn’t fit in with the strict atmosphere in the school she teaches in, Harlem’s rigid ideas of race, or the lavish Denmark lifestyle. She ends up in an unhappy marriage and fails to find fulfillment in every move she takes. This novel has a very pessimistic outlook, matching the tone of Gulliver’s Travels. Helga and Gulliver both end up unhappy without a home or family, due to their constant movement and rejection. Looking at Gulliver through the lens of Helga Crane, I can understand his rejection of humanity as not just thinking he is “above”, but that he does not belong.

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Becoming White

The David Lloyd reading and the idea of “The Irish Becoming White” really struck me this week. I had not considered that African Americans and Irish were similarly described in the same time period, as I had thought of the two histories as separate. Lloyd brings to light descriptions of the Irish as savages, with a distinct look of an ape. The Irish are seen as a vulgar and radical people who were not considered “white”. But, the Irish did not look much different from the British. To anyone’s eyes they are considered white. This proves that “white” and “black” are not biological labels. Lloyd writes that these labels given to describe those who are considered “ready” to take part in society and those who are “not yet ready” or “never ready”. It was only when the Irish began to integrate into important roles in society – firemen, policemen- that they were considered ready to be “white” and a full part of society.

 

How can society abolish these fake labels? As Lloyd writes, “Race, we may observe, is a variable set of structures not a quality” (17). Yet, race descriptions surround us everywhere. On applications, surveys, standardized tests, and government forms we are asked to check the box of our race. American history has seen lots of immigrant groups from different countries as targets of prejudice and violence – Jews, Irish, Italians – that eventually joined the big amorphous category of “whiteness” while black remains the other. How will these labels continue to change? These questions are not easy, but they are ones I will think about often as “whiteness” and “blackness” continue to transform.

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The Versatility of Performance

When reading the Roach piece, I felt very confused by the multiple contexts which he used the word “performance” in. Roach used “performance” to describe cultures, practices, and holidays. He uses the word as a verb, noun, and adjective. The most distinct context of “performance” I found while reading was on page 13: “the materials of the present study are thematized under categories of those restored behaviors that function as vehicles of cultural transmission. Each category pairs a form of collective memory with enactments that embody it through performance: death and burials, violence and sacrifices, laws and (dis)obedience, origins and segregation.” This quote stood out to me because laws, segregation, burials… these do not seem like performances to me. But, Roach’s article shows that performances are intertwined with and necessary to process and understand shared memory. When a death is experienced, disobedience is seen in society or people come from different backgrounds, our natural reaction as a society is to find a way to deal with this. Roach’s quote suggests and brings to light that burials help the living cope, laws help normalize society (in negative and positive ways) and segregation results from a society that creates differences that do not exist. These performances are ways that society forgets and attempts to erase and recreate.