“Criteria for Negro Art” and “The Negro Artist and Modern Art”
DuBois’ piece, “Criteria for Negro Art,” helps illuminate the unanswered questions by Bearden in “The Negro Artist and Modern Art.” Bearden’s aesthetics do not account for commercialism and his fundamental chain concering social critique (“The artist must be the medium through which humanity expresses itself” (141)) becomes stressed when talking about commercial viability. Bearden writes that the artist ought to channel humanity through his or her art, in some ways this meets DuBois’ criteria that art ought to be a communal artifact channeling the values or aspirations of that community: “Thus all art is propaganda and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purists. I stand in utter shamelessness and say that whatever art I have for writing has been used always for propaganda for gaining the right of back folk to love and enjoy” (DuBois 103). Bearden’s concept of humanity-artist-art only seems to work in a vacuum, in a world without the prejudices DuBois describes in his essay. The wonderful creative process Bearden describes: “…[T]he artist with vision, sees his material, chooses, changes, and by integrating what he has learned with his own experiences, finally molds something distinctly personal,” would likely fade into obscurity because DuBois argues the audience for black artists expect a distinctly stereotypical as opposed to distinctly personal narrative.
Bearden talks at length about the relationship between the theory of art, an aesthetics, and the subsequent development of worthwhile art: “We need some standard of criticism then, not only to stimulate the artist, but also to raise the cultural level of the people. It is well known that the critical writings of men like Herder, Schlegel, Taine, and the system of marxian dialectics, were as important to the development of literature as any writer” (Bearden 140). DuBois’ work seems to reflect the public consciousness Bearden hopes an aesthetics for black art will cultivate when he writes that black artists simply hand over their work to a “white jury” (DuBois 104). The goal, unstated in Bearden’s piece, is that developing an aesthetics empowers a minority voice, which then in turn encourages the production of truly authentic art from minority artists.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
Week 13, entry one and two
Entry one
“The Harlem Intelligentsia” and “Cordelia the Crude” and “Smoke, Lilies, and Jade” and the work of Archibald Motley Jr.
McKay’s chapter “The Harlem Intelligentsia” contains arguments for aesthetics and black art. McKay’s aesthetics emphasize authenticity, and that authenticity ought to be preserved, regardless the picture portrayed through the artist’s medium. McKay writes: “I think all people are interesting to write about. It depends on the writer’s ability to bring them out alive” (McKay 159). Within that statement appears some implication that links form and content. The writer’s ability is a very broad term that could encompass potentially much more besides form, but form is definitely under that very large, ambiguous umbrella.
Two selected works: “Smoke, Lilies and Jade” and “Cordelia the Crude” meet McKay’s idea of aesthetics in varying ways. The idea of form makes Nugent’s work, “Smoke, Lilies, and Jade” a problematic piece for McKay’s aesthetics, I think. Nugent’s short story, while vividly capturing the dead-end artist lifestyle, seemingly obfuscates the vitality of the people in the story through its form. The ellipses disjoint the narrative, presenting the readers with flashes of information that can be very difficult to piece together. While the lighter in the story undoubtedly meets McKay’s insistence that words ought to be “pictures conveying color and meaning,” the rest of the short story presents challenges to McKay’s aesthetics. “Cordelia the Crude” seems to meet McKay’s idea of aesthetics. I think McKay would appreciate Thurman’s authentic portrayal of a displaced Southern girl in Harlem who eventually becomes part of the seedy underbelly most everyone ignores. The vividness of Thurman’s account also highlights the authenticity McKay emphasizes. McKay eloquently states: “…[H]arlem did not hold quite the same thrill and glamor as before. Where formerly in saloons and cabarets and along the streets I received impressions like arrows piercing my nerves and distilled poetry from them, now I was often pointed out as an author. I lost the rare feeling of a vagabond feeding upon secret music singing in me” (McKay 161). The reflection on McKay’s part illuminates perhaps his own idea of the narrative voice, that vagabond translating the energies of a place in prose, poetry, or whatever medium the artist chooses.
McKay seems willing to suspend formal definitions often constructed by social forces to evaluate something objectively. His opinion of Walter White seems particularly useful for this. He writes that White “is Negroid simply because he closely identifies himself with the Negro group—just as a Teuton becomes a Moslem if he embraces Islam” (McKay 159). Based on this idea of associations McKay introduces, I wonder if any of this is applicable to forming a definition black art. Would McKay consider something patronized exclusively by white audiences still black if it is firmly associated with a white audience? This potential argument throws the career of someone like Archibald Motley Jr. under tight scrutiny because Motley found success largely with white audiences but yet his content was often portraying jazzy street scenes.
Entry two
From Black No More and “South Park”
The excerpt from Schuyler’s work probably ranks among the most favorite works I’ve read thus far from the course. When the original presentation on Schuyler happened, we talked about science fiction and that genre as a means of examining social constructions, the future, and other things. Yet the plot in Schuyler’s work seems like a useful comparison to the “South Park” episode where Kyle Broflovski undergoes a negroplasty to become black.
The brief excerpt from Schuyler’s work demonstrates the social-commercial ramifications of erasing skin color (and the social baggage that accompanies it). The various “race” leaders are exposed as commercial-minded men who built their comfortable life off a corrupt a system. Ultimately, Dr. Beard, Licorice Santop, Walter Williams, and a host of others, are rendered ludicrous because while they have eloquently stated the problem, racism, they have not really thought of the next step, overcoming racism. The excerpt’s focus on the healthy commercial structure thinking about the race problem has created neglects those black people who went through Dr. Crookman’s machine. Here is where the “South Park” episode enters into the picture.
Kyle Broflovski, a Jewish elementary school student, emerges as South Park’s premier basketball player and representative on the state of Colorado’s team. Kyle discovers the other team members are tall, athletic, but the thing he focuses on is that they are also all black. Kyle consults with a plastic surgeon, who then in turn makes Kyle black after darkening his skin, inserting genitalia into his knee caps to make him taller, and doing other things to re-arrange his face. Part of the episode’s point, I feel, is that outward appearances still do not account for social experiences that truly account for an authentic identity. Kyle preserves his curly red hair, a hallmark of his Jewish identity, and still talks the same—suggesting that little socially has changed for Kyle. While Kyle is black, he is still no better at basketball than when he was a small white kid. This idea makes Schuyler’s title, Black No More, particularly striking.
The idea of blackness rendered in the South Park episode suggests a physical and social identity. Yet for whatever reason, the two seem largely unrelated, perhaps because of the brevity of the time Kyle spent as a black kid. Some interesting questions to ask of Schuyler’s full work is how does the changing of skin color finally alter black’s social identity. The implication is that racism is destroyed, so that suggests blacks can appreciate the full opportunities afforded in the United States. So while the blacks in Schuyler’s work are physically black no more, they also appear to be socially “black” no more.
“The Harlem Intelligentsia” and “Cordelia the Crude” and “Smoke, Lilies, and Jade” and the work of Archibald Motley Jr.
McKay’s chapter “The Harlem Intelligentsia” contains arguments for aesthetics and black art. McKay’s aesthetics emphasize authenticity, and that authenticity ought to be preserved, regardless the picture portrayed through the artist’s medium. McKay writes: “I think all people are interesting to write about. It depends on the writer’s ability to bring them out alive” (McKay 159). Within that statement appears some implication that links form and content. The writer’s ability is a very broad term that could encompass potentially much more besides form, but form is definitely under that very large, ambiguous umbrella.
Two selected works: “Smoke, Lilies and Jade” and “Cordelia the Crude” meet McKay’s idea of aesthetics in varying ways. The idea of form makes Nugent’s work, “Smoke, Lilies, and Jade” a problematic piece for McKay’s aesthetics, I think. Nugent’s short story, while vividly capturing the dead-end artist lifestyle, seemingly obfuscates the vitality of the people in the story through its form. The ellipses disjoint the narrative, presenting the readers with flashes of information that can be very difficult to piece together. While the lighter in the story undoubtedly meets McKay’s insistence that words ought to be “pictures conveying color and meaning,” the rest of the short story presents challenges to McKay’s aesthetics. “Cordelia the Crude” seems to meet McKay’s idea of aesthetics. I think McKay would appreciate Thurman’s authentic portrayal of a displaced Southern girl in Harlem who eventually becomes part of the seedy underbelly most everyone ignores. The vividness of Thurman’s account also highlights the authenticity McKay emphasizes. McKay eloquently states: “…[H]arlem did not hold quite the same thrill and glamor as before. Where formerly in saloons and cabarets and along the streets I received impressions like arrows piercing my nerves and distilled poetry from them, now I was often pointed out as an author. I lost the rare feeling of a vagabond feeding upon secret music singing in me” (McKay 161). The reflection on McKay’s part illuminates perhaps his own idea of the narrative voice, that vagabond translating the energies of a place in prose, poetry, or whatever medium the artist chooses.
McKay seems willing to suspend formal definitions often constructed by social forces to evaluate something objectively. His opinion of Walter White seems particularly useful for this. He writes that White “is Negroid simply because he closely identifies himself with the Negro group—just as a Teuton becomes a Moslem if he embraces Islam” (McKay 159). Based on this idea of associations McKay introduces, I wonder if any of this is applicable to forming a definition black art. Would McKay consider something patronized exclusively by white audiences still black if it is firmly associated with a white audience? This potential argument throws the career of someone like Archibald Motley Jr. under tight scrutiny because Motley found success largely with white audiences but yet his content was often portraying jazzy street scenes.
Entry two
From Black No More and “South Park”
The excerpt from Schuyler’s work probably ranks among the most favorite works I’ve read thus far from the course. When the original presentation on Schuyler happened, we talked about science fiction and that genre as a means of examining social constructions, the future, and other things. Yet the plot in Schuyler’s work seems like a useful comparison to the “South Park” episode where Kyle Broflovski undergoes a negroplasty to become black.
The brief excerpt from Schuyler’s work demonstrates the social-commercial ramifications of erasing skin color (and the social baggage that accompanies it). The various “race” leaders are exposed as commercial-minded men who built their comfortable life off a corrupt a system. Ultimately, Dr. Beard, Licorice Santop, Walter Williams, and a host of others, are rendered ludicrous because while they have eloquently stated the problem, racism, they have not really thought of the next step, overcoming racism. The excerpt’s focus on the healthy commercial structure thinking about the race problem has created neglects those black people who went through Dr. Crookman’s machine. Here is where the “South Park” episode enters into the picture.
Kyle Broflovski, a Jewish elementary school student, emerges as South Park’s premier basketball player and representative on the state of Colorado’s team. Kyle discovers the other team members are tall, athletic, but the thing he focuses on is that they are also all black. Kyle consults with a plastic surgeon, who then in turn makes Kyle black after darkening his skin, inserting genitalia into his knee caps to make him taller, and doing other things to re-arrange his face. Part of the episode’s point, I feel, is that outward appearances still do not account for social experiences that truly account for an authentic identity. Kyle preserves his curly red hair, a hallmark of his Jewish identity, and still talks the same—suggesting that little socially has changed for Kyle. While Kyle is black, he is still no better at basketball than when he was a small white kid. This idea makes Schuyler’s title, Black No More, particularly striking.
The idea of blackness rendered in the South Park episode suggests a physical and social identity. Yet for whatever reason, the two seem largely unrelated, perhaps because of the brevity of the time Kyle spent as a black kid. Some interesting questions to ask of Schuyler’s full work is how does the changing of skin color finally alter black’s social identity. The implication is that racism is destroyed, so that suggests blacks can appreciate the full opportunities afforded in the United States. So while the blacks in Schuyler’s work are physically black no more, they also appear to be socially “black” no more.
Week 12, entry one and two
Entry one, “The Creation” by James Weldon Johnson and “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes
The two poems take differing approaches to attacking the narrative poor people are encouraged to cling to: theirs is the kingdom of Heaven and all the luxury promised in it. As we discussed in class, the Earth in “The Creation” offers comfort and splendor to be enjoyed by all. Yet the opening lines in Hughes’ poem challenge this rendering: “Well, son, I’ll tell you: / Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair” (261). The mother in Hughes’ poem navigates a life full of peril filled with tacks, splinters, and boards torn up (261). The beauty in Hughes’ poem is identified in the determination earthly actors demonstrate. The mother does not seem resigned to wait for the afterlife. Rather she has chosen an arduous path that promises struggle and hardship and a perpetual climb.
What strengthens the actors in these poems to move beyond the traditional narrative of the poor also differs. The mother seems motivated by improving the next generation’s stock. The ultimatum the mother delivers to her son is clear: “So boy, don’t you turn back… / Don’t you fall now-- / For I’se still goin’, honey, / I’se still climbin, / And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair” (Hughes 262). The implication from the line resounds: the mother is willing to move beyond her own familial ties in pursuit of improvement for perhaps her entire race. In Johnson’s poem, God is cast as lonely. This loneliness makes God approachable, for He enjoys his creations. Throughout the empty world God creates, His oft-repeated line echoes: “That’s good!” (Johnson, 286). God’s creations seemingly have much meaning to Him, for they have inspired and cultivated His genius and creativity but perhaps most importantly, abated His loneliness. If His creations should falter, God could tumble back into loneliness and despair. The poem makes God approachable, a God that appreciates his creations and appears there for them throughout all their hardships because as God warded off loneliness and despair from his divine powers, so now he appears willing to ward off despair for his creations.
Entry two,
“Nothing Endures” by Countee Cullen and “I Want To Die While You Love Me” by Georgia Douglas Johnson
The two poems by the talented poets seem to capture Richard Wright’s creed that black art ought to be intended for black audiences, not necessarily appeals to white audiences. “I Want To Die While You Love Me” is a remarkably beautiful work that measures vitality through the experience of love and that experience over time. The times without love crawl at a snail’s pace, agonizing the speaker: “Oh, who would care to live / Till love has nothing more to ask / And nothing more to give!” (Johnson 275). Life after love has lost its energy and vitality seems worthless to the speaker because the times would just feel so slow and arguably make the speaker feel cold. While the time without love is agonizingly slow, the time with love seems all too quickly passing. The speaker has a nagging conscience reminding him or her love will dim, and this high will cease to be (Johnson 275).
Likewise “Nothing Endures” by Countee Cullen recognizes love as a fleeting quality that has the heart purring for its duration but ultimately all blood goes from riotous to “quiet” and “still” (Cullen 250-251). The poem concludes with the powerful observation: “Nirvana gapes / For all things given; / Nothing escapes, / Love not even” (Cullen 251).
Buried perhaps within the two poems is a social commentary on the factors that contribute to love. The speaker in Johnson’s poem identifies fairness, laughter upon his or her lips, and lights in his or her hair as factors holding his or her partner’s attention (275). Time slowly erodes are youthful attractiveness and mental sharpness in Johnson’s poem, making love’s timeline a situational rather than universal code. In “Nothing Endures” there is a “tax” levied “on the subtlest brain” that perhaps control the perception of beauty waxing or waning (Cullen 251). The two poems demonstrate that some Renaissance figures were not neglecting domestic and personal issues in search of the general racial uplift. This sentiment reverts back to Wright and other’s aesthetic value that black art should be for black audiences. At the same time these poems seem short of DuBois’ “criteria” for Negro art, for they do not seem to hold the political propaganda the race leader demanded out of works.
The two poems take differing approaches to attacking the narrative poor people are encouraged to cling to: theirs is the kingdom of Heaven and all the luxury promised in it. As we discussed in class, the Earth in “The Creation” offers comfort and splendor to be enjoyed by all. Yet the opening lines in Hughes’ poem challenge this rendering: “Well, son, I’ll tell you: / Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair” (261). The mother in Hughes’ poem navigates a life full of peril filled with tacks, splinters, and boards torn up (261). The beauty in Hughes’ poem is identified in the determination earthly actors demonstrate. The mother does not seem resigned to wait for the afterlife. Rather she has chosen an arduous path that promises struggle and hardship and a perpetual climb.
What strengthens the actors in these poems to move beyond the traditional narrative of the poor also differs. The mother seems motivated by improving the next generation’s stock. The ultimatum the mother delivers to her son is clear: “So boy, don’t you turn back… / Don’t you fall now-- / For I’se still goin’, honey, / I’se still climbin, / And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair” (Hughes 262). The implication from the line resounds: the mother is willing to move beyond her own familial ties in pursuit of improvement for perhaps her entire race. In Johnson’s poem, God is cast as lonely. This loneliness makes God approachable, for He enjoys his creations. Throughout the empty world God creates, His oft-repeated line echoes: “That’s good!” (Johnson, 286). God’s creations seemingly have much meaning to Him, for they have inspired and cultivated His genius and creativity but perhaps most importantly, abated His loneliness. If His creations should falter, God could tumble back into loneliness and despair. The poem makes God approachable, a God that appreciates his creations and appears there for them throughout all their hardships because as God warded off loneliness and despair from his divine powers, so now he appears willing to ward off despair for his creations.
Entry two,
“Nothing Endures” by Countee Cullen and “I Want To Die While You Love Me” by Georgia Douglas Johnson
The two poems by the talented poets seem to capture Richard Wright’s creed that black art ought to be intended for black audiences, not necessarily appeals to white audiences. “I Want To Die While You Love Me” is a remarkably beautiful work that measures vitality through the experience of love and that experience over time. The times without love crawl at a snail’s pace, agonizing the speaker: “Oh, who would care to live / Till love has nothing more to ask / And nothing more to give!” (Johnson 275). Life after love has lost its energy and vitality seems worthless to the speaker because the times would just feel so slow and arguably make the speaker feel cold. While the time without love is agonizingly slow, the time with love seems all too quickly passing. The speaker has a nagging conscience reminding him or her love will dim, and this high will cease to be (Johnson 275).
Likewise “Nothing Endures” by Countee Cullen recognizes love as a fleeting quality that has the heart purring for its duration but ultimately all blood goes from riotous to “quiet” and “still” (Cullen 250-251). The poem concludes with the powerful observation: “Nirvana gapes / For all things given; / Nothing escapes, / Love not even” (Cullen 251).
Buried perhaps within the two poems is a social commentary on the factors that contribute to love. The speaker in Johnson’s poem identifies fairness, laughter upon his or her lips, and lights in his or her hair as factors holding his or her partner’s attention (275). Time slowly erodes are youthful attractiveness and mental sharpness in Johnson’s poem, making love’s timeline a situational rather than universal code. In “Nothing Endures” there is a “tax” levied “on the subtlest brain” that perhaps control the perception of beauty waxing or waning (Cullen 251). The two poems demonstrate that some Renaissance figures were not neglecting domestic and personal issues in search of the general racial uplift. This sentiment reverts back to Wright and other’s aesthetic value that black art should be for black audiences. At the same time these poems seem short of DuBois’ “criteria” for Negro art, for they do not seem to hold the political propaganda the race leader demanded out of works.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
week 11, entry two
11/10
From Mule-Bone and from “Long Gone” by Sterling Brown
Zora Neal Hurston and Langston Hughes’ collaboration on Mule-Bone explores similar themes to Sterling Brown’s poem “Long Gone.” The two works detail men who have some spirit that resists conventionality and the usual means of living. In “Long Gone” the speaker talks about a restlessness preventing him from planting any permanent residence. Troubling about the speaker’s lifestyle are the occupations seemingly available, options Hurston and Hughes bring to the forefront in Mule-Bone. Both Jim and Dave reject hard labor, which consequently rules out any future with Daisy, a woman who works as a house servant for a white Southern family. Jim seems content to play music for the rest of his life; Dave seems content to dance for the rest of his life.
The restlessness that leads the speaker from Brown’s poem and Jim and Dave to reject some life security are perhaps the lasting effects of slavery, prejudice, and a poor quality of life in the South for blacks. Jim and Dave’s ambition to make the town feel jealous, boiling a mule bone down to gravy, is on some levels a symbolic gesture, but the basic level ludicrous and almost another comedic line in a short excerpt full of one liners. Their ambition falls short in the foresight because both men are painted as constant consumers. Dave had his fill of Daisy last night, Jim got into exile from wanting too much. The two characters’ day-to-day existence and consumption definitely defies the Talented Tenth ethos. The speaker in “Long Gone” seems to have greater ambitions because there is the recognition that his present actions can lead to an uncertain future: “I don’t know which way I’m travelin’…” The poem on one hand glorifies the immense possibility of uncertainty and mystery but at the same time underneath that optimism is the nagging conscience that being a vagabond denies stability.
From Mule-Bone and from “Long Gone” by Sterling Brown
Zora Neal Hurston and Langston Hughes’ collaboration on Mule-Bone explores similar themes to Sterling Brown’s poem “Long Gone.” The two works detail men who have some spirit that resists conventionality and the usual means of living. In “Long Gone” the speaker talks about a restlessness preventing him from planting any permanent residence. Troubling about the speaker’s lifestyle are the occupations seemingly available, options Hurston and Hughes bring to the forefront in Mule-Bone. Both Jim and Dave reject hard labor, which consequently rules out any future with Daisy, a woman who works as a house servant for a white Southern family. Jim seems content to play music for the rest of his life; Dave seems content to dance for the rest of his life.
The restlessness that leads the speaker from Brown’s poem and Jim and Dave to reject some life security are perhaps the lasting effects of slavery, prejudice, and a poor quality of life in the South for blacks. Jim and Dave’s ambition to make the town feel jealous, boiling a mule bone down to gravy, is on some levels a symbolic gesture, but the basic level ludicrous and almost another comedic line in a short excerpt full of one liners. Their ambition falls short in the foresight because both men are painted as constant consumers. Dave had his fill of Daisy last night, Jim got into exile from wanting too much. The two characters’ day-to-day existence and consumption definitely defies the Talented Tenth ethos. The speaker in “Long Gone” seems to have greater ambitions because there is the recognition that his present actions can lead to an uncertain future: “I don’t know which way I’m travelin’…” The poem on one hand glorifies the immense possibility of uncertainty and mystery but at the same time underneath that optimism is the nagging conscience that being a vagabond denies stability.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Week 11, entry one
Bontemps’ and Hughes’ poetry each identify in nature some artifact of black heritage. In Hughes’ poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” the speaker traces his toiling to rivers and the accompanying civilizations that rose along those rivers. The slave identity is linked to the richness of those civilizations but the perspective seems to be from the outside looking in. Responsible for the grandeur we can still recognize those civilizations for today but never really credited for it nor ever really benefited from the civilizations.
Bontemps seems to be reminded of suffering when he looks at nature as telling the history of black people. While Hughes explicitly marks the effect of meditating on history and heritage through nature with the line: “My soul has grown deep like rivers,” Bontemps seems to have an implied ruefulness when he writes: “It would be great / To touch the pieces of glory with our hands.” That ruefulness than colors the line “All of them get big in time and people forget / What started them at first” with a disdain. Bontemps seems to point at systems that empower some while leaving others causalities of history with their stories untold. Bontemps writes: “Oh the world is covered with mountains! / Beneath each one there is something buried: / Some pile of wreckage that started it there.”
In some ways Bontemps seems distrustful of the heritage Hughes speaks of. The line “Dust shall yet devour the stones / But we shall be here when they are gone” seems sarcastic and that heritage is perhaps only a lie people tell themselves to make them feel better in light of their deplorable circumstances—chiefly, slavery.
Bontemps seems to be reminded of suffering when he looks at nature as telling the history of black people. While Hughes explicitly marks the effect of meditating on history and heritage through nature with the line: “My soul has grown deep like rivers,” Bontemps seems to have an implied ruefulness when he writes: “It would be great / To touch the pieces of glory with our hands.” That ruefulness than colors the line “All of them get big in time and people forget / What started them at first” with a disdain. Bontemps seems to point at systems that empower some while leaving others causalities of history with their stories untold. Bontemps writes: “Oh the world is covered with mountains! / Beneath each one there is something buried: / Some pile of wreckage that started it there.”
In some ways Bontemps seems distrustful of the heritage Hughes speaks of. The line “Dust shall yet devour the stones / But we shall be here when they are gone” seems sarcastic and that heritage is perhaps only a lie people tell themselves to make them feel better in light of their deplorable circumstances—chiefly, slavery.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Week 10, entry two
From Jonah’s Gourd Vine, Emporer Jones, and Birthright
Jonah’s Gourd Vine by Zora Neal Hurston repeats the same authenticity that has made her work so praised. Compared to Emporer Jones, the play by Eugene O’Neill that played off the idea of the innocent primitive black person, Jonah’s Gourd Vine setting takes on a different attitude and mentality, despite being very similar to the jungle Jones stumbles through in the play. Hurston’s opening line frames the setting while describing the physical environment: “God was grumbling his thunder and playing the zig-zag lightning thru his fingers” (719). A channeling of the blues is evident, and this blues-y mentality colors the physical description to make the experiences of the Crittendens all the more vivid and ultimately sorrowful. The items within the setting, such as the drinking gourd, ring with an overt symbolism of slavery. The jungle in Emporer Jones makes Jones more primitive and therefore ultimately more free. Primitivism is given a Romantic pardon—although Jones is a bad guy, his adventure through the jungle, and the larger metaphysical journey of reverting his soul to that primtive nature, makes the reader feel sympathetic, and in the end that primitivism grants Jones his freedom. John in Hurston’s work also strips in the jungle to wade through the creek. But unlike Jones, the freedom of John is not truly attained. While he escaped the despotic Ned, the larger picture remains gloomy. Unfair sharecropping, bounding practices, and a host of other subtle discriminatory economic systems trap the Crittendens in a slave existence. In the end, John resolves to make enough money so that he can return and save his mother, which sounds exactly like a slave saving enough money to buy his or her own freedom.
In Birthright, Peter Siner returns to the South to teach, but ultimately he hopes to open an institute like Tuskegee. The implication in his plan seems to be an argument that racial uplift can occur from blacks learning trades, being succesful, and ultimately moving up classes by virtue of their increased pay from learning more desirable skills. Hurston’s work gives context to Stribling’s musings as a white man writing about black life. The master of the Crittenden shack, Ned Crittenden, seems trapped in the days of the 1800s because of an internalized inferiority from serving as a slave. He cannot think outside his own terms and even evaluates others in what Peter Siner might consider archaic terms, such as judging John based off the cotton he can harvest, the food he consumes. Amy says with a tinge of uplift yearning: “[D]ese heah chillun is diffunt from us... Ah doan know, mebbe hit’ll take some of us generations, but us got tuh ‘gin tuh practise on trasurin’ our younguns. Ah loves dese heah already uh whole heap. Ah don’t want ‘em knocked and ‘buked” (Hurston 722-723). Treasuring youths involves giving them chances, which Ned does not, consciously or not. Existence for the Crittendens means living in practical slavery. Jonah’s Gourd Vine seems open to being read as what systems block racial uplift that earlier Renaissance artists, such as T.S. Stribling, described.
Jonah’s Gourd Vine by Zora Neal Hurston repeats the same authenticity that has made her work so praised. Compared to Emporer Jones, the play by Eugene O’Neill that played off the idea of the innocent primitive black person, Jonah’s Gourd Vine setting takes on a different attitude and mentality, despite being very similar to the jungle Jones stumbles through in the play. Hurston’s opening line frames the setting while describing the physical environment: “God was grumbling his thunder and playing the zig-zag lightning thru his fingers” (719). A channeling of the blues is evident, and this blues-y mentality colors the physical description to make the experiences of the Crittendens all the more vivid and ultimately sorrowful. The items within the setting, such as the drinking gourd, ring with an overt symbolism of slavery. The jungle in Emporer Jones makes Jones more primitive and therefore ultimately more free. Primitivism is given a Romantic pardon—although Jones is a bad guy, his adventure through the jungle, and the larger metaphysical journey of reverting his soul to that primtive nature, makes the reader feel sympathetic, and in the end that primitivism grants Jones his freedom. John in Hurston’s work also strips in the jungle to wade through the creek. But unlike Jones, the freedom of John is not truly attained. While he escaped the despotic Ned, the larger picture remains gloomy. Unfair sharecropping, bounding practices, and a host of other subtle discriminatory economic systems trap the Crittendens in a slave existence. In the end, John resolves to make enough money so that he can return and save his mother, which sounds exactly like a slave saving enough money to buy his or her own freedom.
In Birthright, Peter Siner returns to the South to teach, but ultimately he hopes to open an institute like Tuskegee. The implication in his plan seems to be an argument that racial uplift can occur from blacks learning trades, being succesful, and ultimately moving up classes by virtue of their increased pay from learning more desirable skills. Hurston’s work gives context to Stribling’s musings as a white man writing about black life. The master of the Crittenden shack, Ned Crittenden, seems trapped in the days of the 1800s because of an internalized inferiority from serving as a slave. He cannot think outside his own terms and even evaluates others in what Peter Siner might consider archaic terms, such as judging John based off the cotton he can harvest, the food he consumes. Amy says with a tinge of uplift yearning: “[D]ese heah chillun is diffunt from us... Ah doan know, mebbe hit’ll take some of us generations, but us got tuh ‘gin tuh practise on trasurin’ our younguns. Ah loves dese heah already uh whole heap. Ah don’t want ‘em knocked and ‘buked” (Hurston 722-723). Treasuring youths involves giving them chances, which Ned does not, consciously or not. Existence for the Crittendens means living in practical slavery. Jonah’s Gourd Vine seems open to being read as what systems block racial uplift that earlier Renaissance artists, such as T.S. Stribling, described.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Week 10, entry one
“Drenched in Light” and some from Home to Harlem and other earlier works
I enjoyed reading “Drenched in Light” because I found the protagonist Isie’s zest so refreshing from other readings such as Bennett’s poem “Hatred” and Hughes’ serious essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” Characters around Isie seem preoccupied with their own weighty thoughts such as Isie’s grandmother and her antiquated ideals of womanly behavior or the white woman and her melancholy. These attitudes almost appear comical in light of Isie’s carefree nature. Her chief activity is spent looking out onto the road, something fraught with metaphorical import, but for her the activity seems thoroughly based in passing the time, amusing herself with her own thoughts, etc. In some ways she reminds me of Jake from McKay’s Home to Harlem because in the chapter “Snowstorm in Pittsburgh” we see Jake seemingly reject the gaudy symbolism of Pittsburgh the narrator lays out in the opening lines.
Now that’s interesting to explore what it means that a mid-20s man and a child can have that much in common. Just as far as investigating their respective outlooks and what those outlooks mean in the context of the narrative, the social events at the time (such as the Harlem Renaissance and idea of racial uplift), etc.
But still in the light of other readings some parts of “Drenched in Light” read with a slight sting. When Isie is dancing in front of that gaping crowd in red, it is hard not to call the image of Cordelia or Karintha. But I think what makes David Levering Lewis laud the work is its commitment to storytelling, not the grandiose meaning behind actions. You can project Isie to any one of those futures but if that happens it is not because Hurston foreshadows in any way that eventual reality, but rather she authentically tells of a little black girl in Florida and does so with incredible clarity and vividness.
I enjoyed reading “Drenched in Light” because I found the protagonist Isie’s zest so refreshing from other readings such as Bennett’s poem “Hatred” and Hughes’ serious essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” Characters around Isie seem preoccupied with their own weighty thoughts such as Isie’s grandmother and her antiquated ideals of womanly behavior or the white woman and her melancholy. These attitudes almost appear comical in light of Isie’s carefree nature. Her chief activity is spent looking out onto the road, something fraught with metaphorical import, but for her the activity seems thoroughly based in passing the time, amusing herself with her own thoughts, etc. In some ways she reminds me of Jake from McKay’s Home to Harlem because in the chapter “Snowstorm in Pittsburgh” we see Jake seemingly reject the gaudy symbolism of Pittsburgh the narrator lays out in the opening lines.
Now that’s interesting to explore what it means that a mid-20s man and a child can have that much in common. Just as far as investigating their respective outlooks and what those outlooks mean in the context of the narrative, the social events at the time (such as the Harlem Renaissance and idea of racial uplift), etc.
But still in the light of other readings some parts of “Drenched in Light” read with a slight sting. When Isie is dancing in front of that gaping crowd in red, it is hard not to call the image of Cordelia or Karintha. But I think what makes David Levering Lewis laud the work is its commitment to storytelling, not the grandiose meaning behind actions. You can project Isie to any one of those futures but if that happens it is not because Hurston foreshadows in any way that eventual reality, but rather she authentically tells of a little black girl in Florida and does so with incredible clarity and vividness.
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