Tuff 2

I was just as pleased with the second half of this book as the first, and it is still my favorite of the semester. I think the fact that Tuffy didn't win the election kind of goes along with the postmodern genre's nihilistic nature. Tuffy doesn't really seem to care, and he even states that if he went to college, all he'd be taking up was space (256). He seems to have found something in himself which suggested he could change his neighborhood/city/the world, but then he lost it. I think this was Beatty's way of showing the current problem in the African American society (and American youth in general), of not believing they can make a change or advancements in the problems of racism. Beatty also took an opprtunity towards the end of the novel to make a statement about diversity, and I think issues about the diversity of the American literary canon tie into this. Yolanda explains the theory of Gestalt to Winston. She says, "When we see something that is divided up in parts, we tend to see the whole thing, not the individual units" (256). I think here Beatty is making a comment about African Americans and all other minorities being overshadowed in America. This includes literary works. It also might be an explanation of stereotypes; we see all the members of a group as a stereotype instead of looking at their individual personalities. We assume things based on people's outward appearances, which is why Beatty's readers might have been shocked to see that Winston was so knowledgable about film, or Yolanda about psychology. I think with this novel, Beatty really breaks a lot of boundaries and hits his readers hard with thoughts of stereotypes and race. I'd definitely reccommend this book to all my friends, in fact, I already have. Satire being the popular genre of today, I think Beatty's book has more of an effect on younger readers.

Tuff

I have to say, I enjoy Paul Beatty's "Tuff" more than any other book we've read this semester. I have a preference for the postmodern genre, and satire is kind of my thing. The only tv shows I watch are satire, and it's refreshing to find a book like that. "Tuff" seems to be the most modern book we've read this semester, although the others were written around the same time period. I think Beatty does this by giving us a stereotypical American environment that we have all been familiar with for some time. The "ghetto" of New York City has become a symbol for America's poor African American community, as well as the origin of drugs, crime, and cultural disintigration in America. I feel that the ghetto of NYC has been so over exposed, that a somewhat unreal definition of it has become the stereotype. Beatty uses the sterotype of this environment and the sterotype of the people who live in this environment, to satirize modern society. He does this expertly. Beatty's use of these stereotypical characters enables his readers to have a sense of familiarity with the story, while he is really attacking the readers for using the stereotypes. We discussed in class that satire is a good way, espcially in African American racial issues, to bring up big problems with society in a way that makes the readers feel more comfortable. It is ironic how Tuffy's father doesn't believe that Tuff can win the position for city council, when he is supposedly an ex Black Panther, who has always encouraged black empowerment. This book is filled with irony, and sometimes the irony is upsetting. What I mean by upsetting is, that at first it is funny or interesting, but when it actually sinks into your mind, it makes the reader upset at how correct that irony is. This is what Beatty is trying to do to his readers. Satire is a more comfortable way of reaching people on big issues, but I also think it hits its readers harder, because they see how correct the satire is when they look at thier own misguided first reactions to it.

Fledgling 3

This is a very long overdue post, but my final judgement of "Fledgling" is that it got much better towards the end, and I started to see much more symbolism. The idea of memory was one of the most important ideas I saw. Shori's memory loss is much like the present African American community's loss of memory for the pasts of their ancestors, as was also suggested in "All Aunt Hagar's Children." She doesn't remember anything about her past or her family. She does not feel she belongs anywhere, yet she is instructed to, "...seem more Ina than they" (272). She is also seen as a threat to many of the Ina families because of her genetic differences, as African Americans were seen as a threat to white Americans, and sometimes still are. A passage that was very thought-provoking to me was when Joan told Shori at the trial, "You begin to overshadow your dead" and, "Remember your dead...Keep them around you. And remember what you want" (245). The whole idea of Shori overshadowing her dead was interesting to me. Was this supposed to suggest that African Americans today are overshadowing the turmoils of their ancestors? I don't know, however, I think that Butler was trying to make the same statement as Jones that African Americans today are forgetting where they came from and must remember their histories if they want a chance at equality or justice.
Another tie I saw between the story and the real world was the Ina's initial denial of racism within the Ina people. Wells insisted that race meant nothing to them when looking for symbionts, and that they were happy about Shori's genetic superiority. This seemed equal to many Americans' views that racism is no longer an issue in America. As in America, the Ina soon found out that there was still much bitter racism going on, and it was the main cause for all of the recent Ina deaths. My favorite passage in this book, because it reminded me of the African American sense of dislocation and search for equality, was when Shori said, "My memory of them is gone. I can't even mourn them properly because for me, they never really lived. Now I have begun to relearn who I am, to rebuild my life, and my enemies are still killing my people. Where is there safety for my symbionts or for me?" (271). This is what I think the current African American community is going through: relearning, rebuilding, and the ever-present sense of dislocation.

Fledgling 2

I've noticed a sort of slave owner- slave relationship between the Ina and their symbiants. We've talked about how they both seem to need each other. The Ina need the symbiants for food and energy, and the symbiants will die if they aren't exposed to enough of their Ina's venom. This can be compared to the way slave owners needed slaves to do the work that they couldn't handle all by themselves, and the slaves didn't necessarily need the slave owners, but would have had nowhere else to go in a land full of animosity towards them. I think it is safe to say the Ina are the ones being compared to the slaves in this book, however. When Brook is describing some of the Ina's history, she says, "...physically, he and most Ina fit in badly wherever they go- tall, ultrapale, lean, wiry people. They usually looked like foreigners, and when times got bad they were treated like foreigners- suspected, disliked, driven out, or killed" (136). So either way you look at it, there is support for the suggestions of the Ina or the symbiants being compared to slaves, or an opressed race in general.
I thought it was very interesting when Brook and Shori were talking about where the Ina species came from and some stories about what they are doing on earth. I saw a comparison to Toni Morisson's "Paradise" when Brook says, "Some future generation of them is supposed to leave this world en masse and go to paradise- or back to the homeworld" (137). This really reminded me of the last lines of "Paradise," and just the whole idea that these people are all looking for some idea of home or paradise.
Also, I am starting to warm up to this book, though I still think it is far less superior to those we have read previously. :)

Fledgling (afterthought)

Also, I forgot to mention that my dictionary's definition of "fledgling" is : "a young bird just fledged: an immature or inexperienced person." And the definition of "fledged" is: "to develop the feathers necessary for flying or independent activity" (Merriam-Webster). The title ties into Renee's situation of discovering who she is and where she is from, or developing the history she needs in order to have an identity, much like a bird developing its wings.

Fledgling

So far, I've been very disappointed by this book. The books we have been reading for this class have all been exceptionally well-written, and in my opinion, this one is not. The dialogue is so forced and unbelievable, it makes me feel like I'm in grade school again. Aside from my opinion of its flaws, I have found some themes in this story. One theme I have found is the story's dwelling on the feeling of isolation and forgotten identity. The young girl vampire seems to have lost her family and her whole sense of who she is. She's trying to remember where she came from. I can see this tying to racial issues of African Americans trying to find their own identity in our society, and also trying to identify their roots. Renee claims that "the experimenters" made her black so that she could withstand the sunlight better than those of her kind who are pale (37). I thought this idea of the experimenters was very interesting. They could possibly symbolize "god" or this could be a statement that people with brown skin are superior to those with white skin. I'm hoping to hear more about these experimenters.
Renee and Wright are trying hard to figure out where she came from, and more about her kind. They do all kinds of research, but can't seem to find anything useful. Renee says, "Whoever and whatever I was, no one seemed to be writing about my kind. Perhaps my kind did not want to be written about" (39). I thought this was a very important passage. To me, this was a connection to the opression of African Americans and the supression of the African American voice in our society. Maybe it's not that her "kind" didn't want to be written about, but they were ignored altogether. Renee seems to feel fine with her differences, yet she is aware that her differences have caused something bad to happen in her past.

The Intuitionist 2

In the last half of "The Intuitionist," much was added to the allegory of this book. I saw a very religious side to it, too, aside from race. I saw Fulton's notebook as being a metaphor for the Bible; everyone reads it a different way and gets a different message from it. It's messages can be taken out of context. Maybe the black box was something that never really existed but was a false hope for the people to have faith in. This sounds rather pessimistic, but people will probably always have some defect, they are not perfect. Also, the elevator inspectors thought that Lila Mae was important since her name was written in the notebook, but we saw that Fulton was just writing her name in the margin almost unknowingly; he didn't really mean anything by it. So, the notebooks seemed to symbolize the Bible or any religious writings to me. I also thought of the elevators as people in general, rather than slaves, towards the end of the book. I thought the idealistic black box would be "the perfect elevator," or, a person who didn't factor race/gender/any differences into the way they viewed people. The perfect person would look beyond the "skin of things."

The Intuitionist

Colson Whitehead's "The Intuitionist" is an allegorical novel. I think he is using the Intuitionist elevator inspection industry as a metaphor for the African American race, but it is too early to tell. There are a few hints. One example is the description of the area "the Department has allowed the colored men" (18). Lila Mae sees one of Chancre's campaign posters on the wall and it has been graffitied by the "colored men." Whitehead writes, "No one notices them but they're there, near invisible, and count for something" (18). I took this as a metaphor for the African American race and the idea that their voice in the nation has been and still is ignored or invisible.
I also saw an argument against the literary "canon" which we have discussed in class. On page 21, Whitehead is describing Chuck's desire for being an elevator professor. He says, "His students should be acquainted with the entire body of elevator knowledge, not just the canon" (21). This was very interesting word choice and made me think Whitehead meant that people need to be more familiar with all literary voices, including African Americans, instead of just reading the so-called American "canons." I think he means to say that the canons are not really true American canons if they don't include the history, voice, and opinions of all Americans of every race. Whitehead uses the ideas of Empiricism and Intuitionism in elevator inspections as a metaphor for this.
We talked a little bit about how confusing the time frame for this book is. I think it could be taking place in the future even though it seems like the past. A passage that makes me think this is, "Because there must be patterns, experience is recursive, and if the pattern has not announced itself yet, it will, eloquent and emphatic in a mild-mannered sort of way" (28). I think this means basically that history repeats itself. If this is an idea in Whitehead's book, then it could be taking place in a future where history is repeating itself and elevators are once again something to wonder at.
The main theme I see so far in this book is isolation, especially the isolation Lila Mae feels. She feels as if she is invisible. When the two men come to her apartment and search it for evidence, she feels completely violated. "She doesn't feel as if she lives here anymore...She doesn't live here" (40). This is a huge hint of isolation and a feeling of dislocation. Also the subject of the white characters being Irish brings in another factor of that feeling of dislocation. These will be the main ties to the allegory, I think.

All Aunt Hagar's Children 3

I would have to say that I found a lot more to discuss with the second half of this book. Especially in the last two chapters, the issue of diaspora and the importance of family past is brought more into the picture. I think "All Aunt Hagar's Children" definitely symbolizes the African American population. Hagar was Abraham's concubine in the Bible, who was eventually banished and forgotten about. I saw this as a symbol for the African American population because they were brought to America, forced to work, and eventually forgotten after slavery was abolished. I also think this is the meaning of the title because terms like "all God's children" are used throughout the book. For example, at the end of "Blinsided," Roxanne is imagining a universe where "...Pluto was open all the time to all of God's children. Yes, open even to the least of them" (321). I understood this to mean that the African Americans, Roxanne's race, are the "least of them."
In the chapter "Bad Neighbors," the story takes place in a neighborhood that seems to be made up of affluent African Americans. A more unfortunate family comes along and rents a house and the neighbors become angry and intimidated. This family seems to anger them because they ruin the image of successful African Americans that the neighbors are trying to uphold. Sharon, however, seems to want a simpler life. She secretly falls in love with Derek of this less fortunate family. She marries the man her parents approve of, but Derek is still there with her. In her inner monologue, she changes her words to sound like the lazy southern way Derek says his. So in a way, she tries to get back to her southern roots. She also "got into bed the way she came into the world" (373). For me, this symbolized going back to her roots. One of my favorite lines of the book was the last line of this chapter: "Almost imperceptibly, the rightmost red number on the fine German clock went from two to three" (373). I loved how Jones slyly suggests the love affair between Sharon and Derek, whether physical or just imaginary, by slipping in those numbers. Sharon and her husband's relationship now have this third person involved.
Now, I think the most loaded chapter as far as symbolism goes, was "Tapestry." The word tapestry describes the book's weaving together of many stories to form one tapestry of African American life. Also, Anne creates this tapestry which holds a lot of symbolism in the making of it. She creates this brown bunny, then she decides which way his path in the snow will go; she decides his new home for him, just as the American colonists decided the Africans' new home for them. She creates a hawk, because, "...the work would not be complete without a diving hawk, a bird of prey more dominant than anything else in the sunless sky...its talons exposed..." (385). She later removes the bunny, and the hawk stays in the tapestry triumphant. I think this symbolizes how the African American past, the story of so many opressed peoples, has been forgotten through the generations. This is a thought of Anne's as she is on the bus to Washington. Also, she says, "None of her descendants were ever to become tapestry women" (389). This means her descendants would forget where they came from as well. Anne decides that she wants to return to her roots in Mississippi, but she knows this will never truly happen. At the end of the chapter, the African American train passengers all around her start talking in thier sleep. They are whispering as if from another time, as if they are slaves. I think here, Jones meant to say that the African American past is still out there but it is as small as a whisper during sleep. African Americans are forgetting the rich histories they have, and this is upsetting since it is how they came so far from where they were.

Aunt Hagar's Children 2

I've noticed a common occurence in all of the chapters; they all seem to have pregnant women in them. I'm not sure at all what the meaning behind this is, but I've noticed it a lot. In the first chapter Ruth isn't pregnant but Aubrey tries to get her pregnant and she does have an infant. There might be a meaning of new life, as in the new life they all made for themselves in Washington, D.C. as opposed to an ancestry of slaves in the south. The chapters have still been ending at the climax of the story and we never find out what happens. This is especially confusing in , "A Poor Guatemalan Dreams of a Downtown in Peru." In this chapter, Arlene, Avis, and Eulogia seem to have shared the memories of all the "miracles" of death that happened around them. They know each other's minds. I think that at the end of the story, Arlene is seeing into Eulogia's experience of the bus ride with the newlyweds. Also, she could have been seeing "the afterlife" because they are driving through a town called Buena Serra, or "Sweet Goodbyes," and it seems to fit in pretty well with her husband thinking that he's about to die. Also, Arlene seems to know when people are going to die, and she turns to her husband and "shows him what the path ahead would be like" (161). This makes me think she is leading him happily and readily into death. I think they are somewhat old at this point and might be ready for it. A thought that came to me after reading this chapter, is that Arlene, Avis, and Eulogia seem to be kind of "grim reapers." People around them just all seem to drop dead. Apart from this, they have a psychic kind on connection and can see into each other's memories, and see where they are all coming from. They seem to share telepathic powers; they can see something in their minds that they did not experience themselves. An interesting website about telapathy is http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/t/telepathy.html . I think it's very ironic how Arlene is a very intelligent scientist, yet she has this ability that can't be explained by science.

All Aunt Hagar's Children 1

I have reached to the chapter "A Poor Guatemalan Dreams of a Downtown in Peru" of Jones' novel, "All Aunt Hagar's Children." So far, each chapter seems to be about a different person and I can't really connect the people together at all. The only thing I think might be a connection is the apartment some of the characters live in in Washington, D.C. However, I can't tell if they are living in this apartment building at the same time, or if some events happened much earlier than others. The book is written in third-person and seems to be a free indirect discourse, where the narrator can tell the inner feelings of a few characters in each chapter, but mostly only one character so it could also be classified as a limited omniscient.
All of the stories so far seem to deal with a lot of loss in the characters' lives. The first tells a somewhat cold story about a husband and wife losing thier love for one another rather suddenly after they take in a baby that isn't thiers. Another chapter is about another couple sadly falling apart due to emotional distance and untruthfulness. In another is a beautiful yet very sad death of a woman that a man had once loved, so he tries to make her look beautiful and innocent in her death. In each chapter so far I have noticed this theme of loss. There is also a sense that the characters are getting over thier loss and moving on. For example, Ruth takes the baby back to Virginia I believe and lives with her family again. But Aubrey seems to still be suffering greatly. In "Resurrecting Methuselah," Anita seems to have gotten over her husband and leaves the hospital not caring much, but her husband seems hurt that he has almost lost his life and he has no family to lean on anymore.
I'm really not sure what to make of this book right now. I like it, but I am very confused as to its underlying meaning or themes, other than loss. I also can't see a huge connection to it's being an "African American" novel. The characters might be African American, but I don't see the same oral traditions and diasporic, home-searching themes as the two previous novels. These characters seem to be at home in Washington, D.C. Ruth didn't feel at home there, but she went back to her home. If anyone reads this and has something to add to what makes this novel African American, please comment!

The Dew Breaker #2

I just finished reading Edwidge Danticat's "The Dew Breaker." I found that the end of the story did tie up a few loose ends. It cleared up the fact that the "Book of the Dead" and "Book of Miracles" was the same family, with the dialogue about Anne's younger brother dying, and the father's scar across his face. There was a definite connection between physical and emotional hurt throughout the book. I think the physical hurt got worse as the story progressed and took us deeper into Haiti. It started with the scar across the man's face, the girl who lost her voice, the blind aunt, and many others.

The story ended with Anne's brother burning himself, which Anne could never get over because he left behind no corpse to bury. I think this particular brother was her stepbrother, the preacher, since I think her younger brother died in the ocean while she was having a seizure. I think she felt as if she never had closure for these people's deaths since they didn't leave behind a corpse. I saw the corpses as symbols for the people of Haiti's many traumatic secrets during this time. I think Anne just wanted to see them, just like Dany really wanted to bring his secrets out into the open and talk about them. The physical pain had a lot of symbolism to it; for example, the girl with the lost voice could have symbolized any of the characters in this story, especially Dany, Estime, Beatrice, Anne, and the preacher. They all had things they wanted to say, but couldn't. The blinded woman could have symbolized those who blinded themselves trying to do something which they thought was heroic at the time, such as the father.

I think the main point to this story was that everyone has these traumatic secrets, and that trauma is what makes life what it is. Like the preacher says, "What would be the meaning of life, or death, without some lingering regrets?" (227). Regrets are not necessarily trauma, but trauma could be a part of it. Also, I saw a very important connection when the woman is describing the man who tortured her in prison, and when the preacher is describing Ka's father. The woman says, "He'd wound you, then try to soothe you with words, then he'd wound you again. He thought he was God" (199). The preacher says, "He made you uncomfortable, then pretended to relieve your discomfort, so you'd feel grateful to him and think he was on your side" (224). I think here the author is trying to describe the way life works. You'll get hurt, then something good will happen and you'll think you are finally happy, when sometimes it will all come crashing down again. It was very interesting how the woman said he thought he was God. Mostly, I just think this book is about the interesting secrets every person keeps, and how these characters could relate to any family coming out of this disaster in Haiti.

The Dew Breaker #1

Recently, I've been reading Edwidge Danticat's The Dew Breaker for African American lit. Reading to the chapter, "Night Talkers," I have noticed a theme of traumatic events happening to the mian characters of the story. We talked about this a little in class today. The first character experiences the trauma of learning new information about her father which completely changes her view of his past, which also alters her past in a way. She finds that instead of being tortured in Haiti, he was a torturer. The next two characters are married but were separated for seven years after they were wed, and were just now getting to reunite. They hold the secrets that they have both been seeing other people while they were away, and this is a form of trauma in the form of guilt. I'm sure it also drives them crazy wondering what the other was doing while they were apart. The next character was in love with the married man, and had an affair with him while his wife was away. She went through the trauma of loving a man who was unavailable, and becoming pregnant with his child and having an abortion. She too is feeling guilt, remorse, and I think she feels very degraded. I think she still longs for the man.
There is also a minor character who loses her voice, which symbolizes the shock people go through when they lose something they took for granted. I think all of these characters took something for granted. The first girl took for granted the idea she had always had of her father; she took for granted that he was an innocent, good person. The couple took each other for granted, and thier marriage as well. The other girl took her child for granted, and was going through the shock of losing it, even though she chose to do it. She knew the man was unavailable, yet she fell in love with him and is now going through extreme heartbreak. I found it interesting that she could tell the readers that the patients of the hospital were always shocked when they had no voices, even though they knew they were having the procedure done. Yet she doesn't realize she has done this to herself as well.