Sethe vs. The People

While I was reading Beloved, the thing that struck me the most was the reaction of the townspeople towards Sethe’s plight. I found this the most interesting near the end of the book, when we hear Ella’s story of her neglect of her own child. I think this is really startling, because it means that the reason that the townspeople were so uncaring towards Sethe was not because she killed her own children, but because of other, pettier reasons.

            As a reader, the center of the plot is when we discover that Sethe murdered her own children so that they would not have to enter a life of slavery – her character was set up as a strong and well-meaning woman much before we learn of her infanticide. Because this fact is set up so late into the book, her character has already been well developed, so we are meant to see this from her point of view, instead of just dismissing her as a murderer. In fact, up until the shocking discovery, Sethe had been portrayed as quite the good character. This is why I find it so shocking that what may be the turning point for the reader in terms of their perception of Sethe as good or bad is not the same as that for the townspeople. In fact, when we learn that the infanticide is not the only reason for the shunning of Sethe, and that the townspeople actually understand why she did it and can, in a way, relate to her, the plot thickens.

            I honestly really disliked the way that this was set up. From what the reader is shown, the main reason that the townspeople hate Sethe is… jealousy? The turning point for the people seems to be Baby Suggs’ celebration, because it was too cocky and full of undeserved pride and happiness. It seems like the townspeople, after also going through many of the things that Sethe went through, are unwilling (for the majority of the novel) to put away their petty feelings towards the woman and help her out. However, it's also weird, because there's not much to be jealous of as the plot goes on. As Sethe becomes more isolated and her house becomes haunted, and then when Beloved shows up, there seems to be no reason that the people wouldn't help her. 

            I was wondering what you guys think! Do you guys think that the reason that the people leave Sethe to herself and her family for all those years was jealousy? Was in fact because of the infanticide? Or was because of something else? Either way, it’s quite an upsetting story in my eyes, with the people just sitting by as Sethe was plunged deeper and deeper into a dangerous situation. 

Post-shuffle thoughts

After reading Paul Beatty’s the White Boy Shuffle, I am left with many emotions. Firstly, the absurdity of the entire situation strikes me. It’s hard for it not to; the idea of the United States government dropping an atomic bomb on its entire African American population is reasonably hard to believe. Quickly looking past the unlikeliness of the situation, it is not difficult at all to perhaps tone down the un-believability of the entire novel and try to make sense of the basic idea portrayed in the ending: the willingness to die for one’s cause. I think that with the more relatable, everyday style that this book is written in, it is not difficult at all to put oneself in the narrator’s shoes. With the other novels that we have read so far, the main characters have always had something a bit off about them: Bigger Thomas’s futility to naturalism, the Invisible Man’s incredible Naivety. However, as I personally find for many books, when the main character is of a similar age to me, and in a similar time, I can better imagine myself in their position, experiencing what they are experiencing. Through this, I believe that this book does the best to get its point across. However, the way that I read it, the moral of the story is still a bit outdated.

The way that I see it, the book’s final, parting-shot moral is a way to emphasize on and condemn the lethargy of the African American community. In Gunnar’s life, we see an overlying discontent with the world that he and his friends are living in, as seen by the disgruntled comment about “driving while black” being a bad thing. However, I do believe that since the book’s 1996 publication, the world has changed quite a bit. I think that nowadays, there is a much larger focus on social justice in society, with more and more people joining the fight for equal rights and treatment for all. This can be seen in organizations such as Black Lives Matter, and the protests that they hold. The way I see it, the White Boy Shuffle isn’t really telling black readers that they should kill themselves to combat racism. Instead, it is saying in a similar way to Kendrick Lamar’s “Another Nigga,” that the African American people needed unite, set aside their gang colors, and unify to stop the enemy from killing them. It is saying that until people were willing to fight against the power system that was oppressing them, nothing would happen. And I do believe that now, 20 years later, this is beginning to happen. 

Is “Their Eyes Were Watching God” Feminist?

The question posed in the title is quite the difficult one. There are reasons to vouch both ways. One could argue that the novel carries a strong feminist dialogue from the very get-go, with the imagery of Janie walking into town in her overalls, without the man that she left with, and with a sense of dignity emanating from her. During parts of the book, Janie strongly believes that she does not need a man to complete her, such as right after the death of her second husband, Joe, and her third husband, Tea Cake. After a big fight with Jody, Janie thinks to herself “Why must Joe be so mad with her for making him look so small when he did it to her all the time? Had been doing it for years.” The way I see it, this quote is very powerful, because it helps shed light on a problem between the relationship between men and women in a way that Jody could not see it.

            However, for every empowering, feminist idea that can be found in the novel, there are many equally oppressive ideas that can be found in the book. For instance, the ideas that Janie’s first two husbands have for who she should be are startlingly possible. For instance, Logan seems to think that the point of a woman’s existence is to make the life of her husband easier, as can be seen when he tells Janie “If Ah kin haul de wood heah and chop it fuh yuh, look lak you oughta be able tuh tote it inside. Mah fust wife never bothered me ‘bout choppin’ no wood nohow. She’d grab dat ax and sling chips lak uh man. You done been spoilt rotten.” Another negative influential man that comes into Janie’s life is Joe, who also has sexist ideals, although they are quite different than those of Logan. Joe thinks that “A pretty doll-baby lak you is made to sit on de front porch and rock and fan yo’self and eat p’taters dat other folks plant just special for you.” This is also problematic, being a push very far into the other direction, with the idea that women are too fragile to be doing a “man’s” work, and that they are meant to be a sort of belonging of their husbands.

            In the end, I would say that when Tea Cake comes around and swoops Janie out of her old life, the novel is really affirmed as a feminist book. After all, in the only relationship of Janie’s that is idolized, the man and the woman are seen more as equals, who pay respects to each other’s wishes. While there are some negative, seemingly awful things about the relationship, such as the beating of Janie, it seems that the positive far outweigh the negative, as both people are content and happy in their relationship. 

On Janie and her Relationships with Others

            In Their Eyes were Watching God, we’ve already been given quite the glimpse into the life of Janie, and it causes me to draw some comparisons with Invisible Man. One of the ways to interpret the idea of invisibility in Invisible Man is one of being “forced inside a box,” that is, people see the character, as a black person, and they stereotype them to the point where they don’t even see the characters personality, and they also try to force the character to be something or someone that they are not. It just so happens that both of these have occurred in the beginning of Janie’s narrative.

First, we see the stereotyping and judging in the first chapter, when Janie is walking through town after coming home from her adventure. The stereotypes and assumptions are in no way subtle: the people around her begin to judge her for everything they can, no matter how wild the accusations are. They begin by discussing her looks, rudely pondering “What she doin’ coming back here in dem overhalls? Can’t she find no dress to put on?—Where’s dat blue satin dress she left here in?” Then the surrounding people go on to talk about the man that she left with, guessing that “he off wid some gal so young she ain’t even got no hairs,” and wondering “Where he left her?­—What he done wid all her money?” These comments are quite damaging to Janie’s character: they place her in a box, one where she seems vulnerable, weak, and overly feminine. The townspeople immediately assume that her man left her, and that he took her money, and that he left for a younger woman: all which portray the idea of her being taken advantage of and then left, which we then find out to be not true: Janie is not the weak person that the people think she is, but is in fact a strong woman with a powerful story behind her.

The next part of my definition of invisibility is fulfilled within the next few chapters. This is most easily seen in chapters 3 and chapter 5. Janie’s Nanny is the first character to give us this idea of a controlling character trying to make our narrator something that they are not. In fact, it seems that Janie has married Logan for the sole purpose of pleasing her Nanny, and fulfilling the role that her Nanny so desperately wants her to play. It seems that Janie has been forced into this marriage simply because Nanny wants her to well off, as Nanny says

“Heah you got uh prop tuh lean on all yo’ bawn days, and big protection (. . .) and you come worryin’ me bout love (. . .) Got a house bought and paid for and sixty acres uh land right on de big road and . . . Lawd have mussy! Dat’s de very prong all us black women gits hung on. Dis love!” 

Others’ wills are also pushed on Janie in chapter 5, when Jody is made mayor. Tony and the people request that the new mayor’s wife (Janie) makes a speech, but Jody has other plans. He says that “mah wife don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no speech-makin’. Ah never married her for nothin’ lak dat. She’s uh woman and her place is in de home.” This obviously angers Janie, as she is said to “[make] her face laugh [. . .], but it wasn’t too easy [. . .] It must have been the way Joe spoke out without giving her a chance to say anything one way or another.” What is shown here is Jody trying, and succeeding to force Janie to be and act like someone that she is not, and in a way, making her and her voice invisible to the townspeople. 

Dancing and Money

            In recent chapters, we have encountered two objects which have been vehemently opposed by the Invisible Man. First, we encounter the “Jolly N Bank,” and we experience the rage which it channels through our narrator. Then, only a few chapters later, we are shown Tod Clifton and his “Dancing Sambo Doll,” which the narrator is shocked and betrayed to see. The most surprising thing about these two items is, in my opinion, not that they exist but that they are owned by the very people that they mock and degrade.

            First, we begin with the “Jolly N Bank,” in chapter fifteen. We are instantly plunged into quite the surreal scene: the endless “brash, nerve-jangling sound,” combined with the violent and somewhat weird imagery of his side “itching violently […] suddenly the pain seemed to leap from my ears to my side and I saw gray marks appearing where the old skin was flaking away beneath my digging nails.” Then, our narrator notices the “cast-iron figure of a very black, red-lipped and wide-mouther Negro,” painting quite the ugly*, racist picture in our minds. Now I don’t know about you, but at this point I was seeing this as one huge dream, which further exaggerates the violent emotions that our narrator feels when he sees this doll. He is disgusted by it, and proceeds to smash it to pieces and hide it inside of his ever-present briefcase. After this, one of his first thoughts is to question why Mary has something “like this” around, and I can’t help but agree. I can see why a motherly figure such as Mary could have some little tchotchkes sitting around, but the emphasis given to the bank really makes me question it. After all, is it not a symbol of oppression? A gross exaggeration of the stereotypes that must plague her and her friends daily? The only half-decent reasonings to keep such a knick-knack around that I can think of would be to do exactly this: to remind her of the struggles that she face, or to accept it and use it as a symbol of beauty, such as how the N word has been taken and had its meaning changed to be one of brotherhood.

            Next is the “Dancing Sambo” doll. The doll carries quite a burden on it, being the representation of Tod Clifton’s betrayals to the ideals that he was seemingly so passionate about. We see Clifton on the side of the road, after his “fall from history,” selling Sambo, and our narrator is taken aback! He describes himself as feeling betrayed and enraged, and it’s not hard to see why. Yes, Tod Clifton has left an organization. Our narrator at the time sees this as stunning, as he thinks that to leave the brotherhood is to leave history itself. However, the way I see it, the big betrayal is a betrayal of race: not only does Clifton have these dolls, but he’s making profit off of them: he’s selling a manifestation of stereotypes against his own people, and it’s quite shocking to see the man that was once described as a potential “black king” having fallen to such a seemingly despicable position. The worst part about it, from the way I see it, is that we don’t know why. Before our narrator gets to hold a conversation, gets to hear why he has stooped this low, Clifton is shot dead, and we are left with many questions which shall remain unanswered.

*Ugly describing the ideas behind the image, not the characteristics

Optic White vs Invisible Black

In chapter 10 of Invisible Man, we find ourselves plunged alongside our narrator into the Liberty Paints factory, the proud producer of the whitest paint found in America. Proud they are: the optic white is what defines them, due to its absolute purity and the way that it shuts out any other colors. It’s even purchased by the government to paint monuments! Their white is the perfect white, and nothing is perfect until it is white: optic white. Taking a step back, there’s no need to jump to conclusions when saying that this optic white and its purity are metaphorical towards the white race. In fact, Wright does pretty much everything he can to beat the dead horse of the “white is right” metaphor.

            We’re plunged into this idea when we meet the white fanatic himself, the ‘Colonel,’ Kimbro. Kimbro treats the optic white paint like his pride and joy. He takes our narrator to his first position, and tells him to take 10 drops of black liquid and to mix it into the white paint. Our narrator is surprised to see that after a bit of stirring, the black is completely gone! The perfect, powerful, optic white has swallowed the black alive, consuming it. The narrator then gets his turn adding the black liquid. He takes note that the black “settle[s] upon the surface and become blacker still, spreading suddenly out to the edges.” What we learn from this is that the black when put up against the white is put in a stark contrast, and is pushed to the edge, almost like a white society repelling a black people! Next, Kimbro returns, and begins to rave about his one love, Optic White. He absolutely adores it! It’s the “purest white that can be found,” and it’s headed straight for a national monument. What an achievement this is for the white, the black liquid already forgotten for its integral role in the construction and validity of the white paint.

            Our narrator then makes quite the mistake: he mixes the wrong black into the white! Kimbro is furious, as, after all the wrong kind of black can spoil a batch. We then see the narrator correct his mistake, but it’s still not perfect. As he says, it has “a speck of dirt” on it, or “a gray tinge.” There’s definitely a trace of black left in this white, but to Kimbro? It’s absolutely invisible. This can be interpreted as one of the times where the idea of invisibility is further pushed onto our narrator. First, we are given the idea that this whiteness can surround a piece of coal, to the point where you can’t even tell that it’s black on the inside. Then, for a very brief amount of time, we see this idea that there can be a blackness inside of this white, not hidden to the trained eye, the eye that is looking for this “invisible” blackness, but a blackness that is unseen by the white onlooker. 

Bigger Thomas: Guilty or Innocent?

Bigger Thomas: Guilty or Innocent?

            When it comes to the bare minimum, the case against Bigger Thomas is quite strong. There is no denying that he did murder not one but two people, although the rape charges for Mary are faulty. However, the points made by Max are definitely not invalid, and there are many more that we as readers can make, as we have an inside knowledge on the events. Personally, I feel conflicted as to whether Bigger is truly innocent, but I think some compelling arguments can be made. I would first argue that Bigger was almost entirely forced into this situation by Jan and Mary. In my opinion, the entire series of events came out of Jan and Mary’s desire to get the “inside scoop” on “black life.” Every single thing that Bigger did leading up to the first murder was almost entirely pressured onto him by the communist couple. Allowing Jan to drive the car? Forced. Eating dinner with them? Not his choice. He would not have had to suffocate her if she was not drunk, as he would not have been in her room. You can call the murder a product of him being at the “wrong place at the wrong time,” but I would argue against that. The statement “wrong place at the wrong time” conveys the idea that this event was completely accidental, 100% up to chance. There was no chance or luck involved in the situation at all, Bigger’s hand was forced, and he was not able to make the correct choices during the time leading up to the murder. I can almost guarantee you that Bigger Thomas would not have ever been in Mary Dalton’s room if he had even an inkling of a choice. However, I am not trying to argue that Bigger is completely innocent. I feel like the way that the book is written and the circumstances are trying to convince us that Bigger has done no wrong, but I find it, at least in some way, difficult to completely write it off. After all, he did commit a murder, and not just one but two. Although it had little effect on the lawmen in the book, I really think the moment that crowns the idea that Bigger is not an innocent man is the murder of Bessie. Already into the second book, Bigger is free from the grasp of Jan and Mary, and he is making is own choices. If Mary’s death was an accident, and if it is possible to write off, I think that a point that we glaze over all too often is Bessie’s death. It was, in the way that I read it, not at all an accident. Bigger was in a less pressing situation, in one that did not require instantaneous responses. In my eyes, one of the few choices that Bigger did make in the entire book was the one to kill Bessie, and that is the excerpt that I would use to drive the nail in the coffin of Bigger’s guilt. All in all, I think that Bigger’s case is one which can’t be simply solved. It is one that defiles human nature. We, as people, like to make decisions in situations like this when one party is clearly “wrong” or “evil,” and the other is a “just” or “good” option, and there is simply no right or wrong, good or evil in this situation. Therefore, it is an argument which will never fully be tied up, a page left unturned, a question unanswered.