Week Seven, entry one

10/8 “Wedding Day”

The events of “Wedding Day” all occur in France, which allows some exploration of the effect place has on the characters. Montmartre, particularly rue Pigalle, is described as as the Harlem of Paris, with its concetration of black jazz musicians musicians who are expatriates of the U.S. Besides being concentrated into living in one area, the blacks in Paris also frequent “The Pit,” which recieved its name from the density of blacks resembling a thick colony of fleas. What seems unsaid in both of these descriptions is why are blacks living in one place and socializing in just one place, especially with just their own race? The blacks portrayed in the story are musicians with no relationship to their white patrons, which is ironic when you think of the communicative power of music, especially the individuality invested in each jazz improvisation. Still, the story indicates no exchange between the whites and blacks. Perhaps this implies some disconnect in values—the Parisians see the music as exotic and something pleasant to dine to while the blacks see their music as parts of themsevles by virtue of its form, jazz.

While what is unexplained is troubling in “Wedding Day,” some of the plot illuminates the various opportunities blacks have in Paris. Paul appears to be able to have a wedding befitting of the passion and romance in the relationship he had with the white American prostitute, Mary. Paul eagerly dresses for the day and then immediately looks into contacting Mary to express his jubilation with the succinct phrase: “Happy wedding day” (Bennett, 368). That phrase seems to say a lot for the new outlook Paul briefly had and some of the opportunity available to blacks in France.

While the blacks in “Wedding Day” are away from the United States, they still bring some of that racial consciousness to bear in their new surroundings. In some ways it seems place cannot erase the cultural formation of certain vulnerabilities, as one musician predicts: “Oh you ain’t so forty. You’ll fall like all the other spades I’ve seen. Your kind falls the hardest” (Bennett, 366). While Paul took advantage of his new place, Paris, and its leniency on blacks (after all he hasn’t done much jail time and he openly beats up white people), others still see him as an American black male susceptible to women, including white women. One of the musicians snickers about Paul’s former racial outlook, saying how he detested white males, but was vulnerable to white females (Bennett, 367). In fact, the news of Paul’s new relationship is centered on his break from the social and gossiping nexus of the Pit to some other place. In Paris there appears some transportation of the former United States culture to new surroundings as much out of comfort as it is out of possibility. The blacks don’t appear entirely integrated in Parisian society but they are clustered very similarly like they are in the United States.

Bennett, G. “Wedding Day.” Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David Levering Lewis. New York: Penguin, 1994. 363-369.