Denver's blindness

Denver has been obsessed with Beloved ever since she saw her on the side of the road. She became infatuated with Beloved as she was someone with whom to talk and live with (other than her mother and the ghost). For 18 years, she had no one her age to talk to and now, with this new edition to the household, she has something to devote all of her attention to.

This is concerning. Despite obvious "issues" with Beloved, Denver remains convinced that Beloved has good intentions. Denver accused Beloved of trying to choke her mother. She saw Beloved disappear in the cold house, only to reappear minutes later. Yet she convinces herself that Beloved is benevolent. Denver is acting like a twelve year old; totally infatuated with a new toy or friend, she quickly gets over flaws in the item and ignores odd (if not downright terrifying) occurrences having to do with it.

Maybe Denver's blindness is explainable. She has had less contract with the outside world and is therefore less experienced. She doesn't know about deceit or corruption in the hearts of man, and so is oblivious to Beloved's actual potential. Denver's mother's similar ignorance to Beloved is also probably reflected in her, providing a possible explanation for her blindness. However Paul's distrust of Beloved should warn her. Being someone with a wealth of experience, Paul's sense of judgement is keen. He would know whether or not to trust a stranger, as he has had to make this decision many times. The fact that Denver ignores (and is actually angry) with Paul is an indication of her blindness. If Beloved turns out to be an evil spirit, then it's on Denver.

Is Racism ∝ Money?

After reading about Dean's fate in Run Mourner, Run, I was struck by how similar it was to Ralph Ellison's short story, King of the Bingo Game. In case you don't remember, Ellison's story is about a poor black man who plays bingo to win money for his wife and coming child. He calls bingo and stops the wheel on his number, but instead of being awarded the prize money, he is beaten by a police officer (Video).

Both Dean and the protagonist in King of the Bingo Game are poor, but stumble on a chance to turn their life around. Percy "promises" Dean a promotion to foreman if he sleeps with Raymond, a prominent black man in his town. Dean goes through with his part of the deal, but Percy doesn't. After waiting half a year, Dean goes to Percy to ask why he hasn't been promoted yet, but instead of a promotion, Dean gets a beating by Percy' sons and loses his job.

This odd similarity between the story of a poor white man and a poor black man made me wonder if racism is as rampant on this level as it is with wealthier people. Would it have made a difference if Dean was black? Probably not. What if Ellison's protagonist was white? He might have received the money, but people would be awfully salty and might end up taking aggressive actions towards him. A sort of similar dynamic can be seen in Their Eyes Were Watching God and The White Boy Shuffle, where (although not explicitly stated in the text), poor people of multiple races are coexisting peacefully.

What if Gunnar was interested in rap?

In Gunnar's community, poetry plays a dominant role. Gangs have their own poets, sport teams are named after poets, it seems like everybody is obsessed with poetry. What if this wasn't the case? What if Gunnar's community was obsessed with rap? Most things probably wouldn't change. Gunnar would still become a community sensation, instead of being asked to speak at funerals, he would MC at clubs and bars. However, I think that after he leaves his community, his life would be much different.

Even if his rap skills matched his poetic ability (they aren't all that different), he probably wouldn't draw as much attention from the college students and professors in Boston. Their high minds wouldn't consider some underground black musician from the west coast as someone to study and draw inspiration from. He would go through his college life without gathering nationwide attention or publishing anthologies of poetry. Instead, he would go back home and continue his rap career. With his skills and rep, he could probably make a good amount of money as well. The book would also lose its signature, "kill us all" ending, but, maybe, in its place, he could start a movement promoting rap as something more than just an underground trend, something that more people should be interested in.

An Interesting Combination

Although this is probably missing the point of our discussion after watching the film Ethnic Notions, I would like to address an interesting aspect of the film. To me, it seemed like the film portrayed the change in African American culture as an invasion. This invasive theme can be seen in both the content of the documentary, but also in the music and other technical aspects.

            African American culture, before the Civil War, is portrayed as a “look at all of those happy Negroes!” kind of deal. The black people in books and songs are happy, non-aggressive, and are happy with their position in society. They are not depicted as a threat to society. Yet after the Civil War, this attitude changes. Not only does the content in films and books change to a more hostile view of black people and culture, but the attitude of the documentary changes as well. There is ominous music with odd screeching sounds playing in the background of clips and pictures that the documentary presents. It is the kind of music that is often present in those cheesy science films about an invasive species or disease. It’s somewhat unnerving. Combine this with the odd echoey sounds in the version of the documentary that we watched and you get a very compelling background to support this claim. What’s more unnerving, though, is that many people during that time (and still today) actually believe in this invasion.

Similarities between TEWWG and documentary

Similarly to Ellison's documentary, I was surprised at the similarities between Hurston's life and the narrative of Their Eyes Were Watching God. However, this time I know that the book was supposed to be based off of events in Hurston's life. It does a pretty good job of it too, the town scene well depicts Hurston's upbringing in Eatonville, the three husbands match in both the book and her life, and her "floating-ness," (being in the muck with Tea Cake and being on her own in life) also seem to match up fairly well.

I was not under the impression that TEWWG would be based on historical events. It seemed too surreal to function that way. The whole idea that one person can come to a town and literally rule over it in a week and many scenes or coincidences with Tea Cake (just so happens to be walking by Jaine right after her husband died, god-like dice ability, and his passing in the end of the book), just don't seem like they could occur in reality. Although I liked the book, I would rather not analyse it in the context of historical semi-autobiography. It is a fun book to read and I want to appreciate it as a work of fiction.

Hurston Tells a Story

One of the things that struck me about Their Eyes were Watching God was its very story like quality. Unlike Native Son and Invisible Man, Hurston isn't trying to prove a point about society; she is trying to tell a story. There is no great moral dilemma or despicable depiction of white society, rather it is a story of a woman, her lovers, and her stories. There are scant references to white people and the novel seems more focused on the life of African-Americans only, rather than interactions between the two races.

Part of the lack of protest probably comes from the fact that there were few white people in the novel. During Jaine's and Joey's time in Eatonsville, there isn't a single white person mentioned in the narrative. This lack of difference means that there is very little possibility for Hurston to talk about oppression. When Jaine and Tea Cake are working in the Muck, there are also very few references to white people. The owner of the bean farm was probably white, but he/she only comes up once in the story. The only parts of the novel that could be racially charged are in the very beginning, where the Jaine talks about her upbringing and grandmother, and towards the end, when the whole ordeal with the cleanup and the court scene goes down.

I enjoyed reading this book. It felt like it could be part of any English course offerec at Uni (maybe not creative writing, though). Hurston's narrative voice made the book feel more like a book that you want to read than Native Son. Her multidimensional characters also made the book more realistic than Invisible Man (which I also liked, but not as much).

Documentary About Ellison or Summary of "Invisible Man?"

I was almost confused while watching the first part of the documentary on Ralph Ellison. The documentary opened with Ellison's childhood, about how he got to college, and eventually to New York. Yet the part that I found creepy was how closely it paralleled the adolescence of the narrator in Invisible Man. Both Ellison and the narrator were given a scholarship, but only after hard work and events essentially out of their hands. It appeared to be a struggle for both to physically get to college, Ellison had to freighthop and, although not stated in the novel, the narrator probably had to go through some similar hardship to arrive at college. Their time at college was also similar, the documentary practically quoted the novel when it said Ellison had to travel north after his junior year and work to pay for the rest of college. Neither of them returned to college, although for different reasons. Both men continued on somewhat similar paths when they were in New York. Both met important people (or their secretaries in the narrator's case) and eventually end up becoming fairly prominent figures in NYC.
Well, at this point their paths split. Ellison went on writing, traveling around, married, and eventually taught. However, the narrator worked with Liberty Paints, then the Brotherhood, and finally went on a soul searching mission only to discover his invisibility and that he has been played all his life. There is very little doubt in my mind that this crossing of paths was a coincidence. Knowing all of the references Ellison made in Invisible Man leads me to assume that this was planned (although I don't remember the documentary talking about this parallel.)

The end

I really enjoyed reading Invisible Man, it was thought provoking, but also had some sense of plot and action. The ending, however, did not live up to my expectations. Perhaps the prologue set my expectations too high. Maybe I was too enticed by learning how the narrator set up 1369 light bulbs to realize that this book isn't a work of science fiction and that this setup wouldn't be explained. What ever the cause was, I do not think that Ellison could logically position the prologue at the end of Invisible Man and maintain coherency.
The first problem of the connection is about the narrator's self image. The narrator seems happy of his invisibility in the prologue. It appears that he is in complete control of it and can use it to his advantage. However, in the end of the book, the narrator seems to just have realized his invisibility and is not to sure of it. He definitely doesn't know if it's a good thing. All that he can do with it is to impersonate very different people, while hardly altering his physical appearance (as if he is invisible). I think that in order for the prologue to match up with the conclusion, Ellison should include an event where the narrator is consciously using his invisibility to accomplish a goal (his last work with the Brotherhood doesn't count, he accomplished something with his invisibility, but it was not what he intended).
Another problem with the connection is about the narrator's personality. In the prologue, he wants to have five phonographs to surround himself with music. Where is this love of music in the main text of the novel? The only time I remember music being mentioned is at the party in the Chthonian when Brother Jack get enraged at a man for requesting the narrator to sing spirituals. For me, the biggest issue in this category is disconnect with the power company issue. Not once during the novel does the narrator complain about the power company's exorbitant rates. I don't even recollect the narrator talking about money after he pays Mary back. I just assumed that the Brotherhood took care of everything financial, yet here he is, complaining that he was swindled out of lots of money.

An exquisite piece of mechanical genius...

Racist Americana aside, that dancing Sambo doll seems really cool. Its only 25 cents and houses a mechanism that makes it dance and shake and all you have to do is pull its head! Where can I get one?
...ebay!

Wait. So the title says it's a "Mechanical Moving Toy," but in the image of the back of the envelope, it's branded an "Amazing Dancing Sambo Illusion." There's a picture of a setup with one string tied from the doll to a chair, and the other from the doll to a pencil on a table. This isn't amazing at all, it's a SCAM. Why would anyone pay $59.95 (plus shipping) for a piece of paper and a string? Hell, they probably don't even include the pencil! Baah, what a racist capitalist scumy ripoff. Surely there has to be a real dancing Sambo out there.

Here's the real dope. It's even 10% off, just $359.99! So you're saying I can spend $360 on a figurine that's missing it's left arm and attaches to a bouncy wooden platform? No thanks. For under $200, I could make an electronic, motorized, dancing figure that can shout obscenities at people as they walk past. All you need is an arduino, 4 servos, a gyroscope, a microphone, a speaker, and some 3D printed parts. Come on people, this is the 21st century, get this crap off of ebay.

Seven Women

I liked the theme of the poem Isabel read in class last Friday. The poem "Four Women" was visibly simple, but also had multiple analytic meanings. I think it would be fun to write a couple more stanzas for the poem. Here's my shot:

My skin is white
my hair is straight
My manner sassy
and my ride's not late
My parents have money
why, isn't that funny!
And what do I call me?
My name is Amanda Jones
My name is Amanda Emilia Jones

My skin is mixed
my hair is rough
I work at McDonald's
cooking your stuff
My mother was an immigrant
Arizona thinks we're illegitimate
And what do they call me?
My name is Maria
My name is Maria

My skin is olive
my hair in a bun
I'll work in a sweatshop
until the day's past done
Life in America had promise
if only they weren't dishonest
What do they call me?
My name is Ita
My name is Ita

1,369 light bulbs

In my hole in the basement there are exactly 1,369 lights. I've wired the entire ceiling, every inch of it. And not with fluorescent bulbs, but with the older, more-expensive-to-operate kind, the filament bulbs. An act of sabotage, you know. (Page 7, Prologue)

   What does this implicate? 1,369 light bulbs is a hell of a lot of light bulbs. Assuming that the light bulbs used were GE's Mazda light bulb, which used 50 watts of power and were prevalent from 1909 to 1945, this array would come out to 68450 watts, or 68.45KW. Furthermore, assuming that this part of the story takes place in the 1930's, the average cost of electricity was 6.08 cents/KWHr, meaning that it would cost 6.08 cents to light a 1000 watt light bulb for 1 hour. Adjusted for inflation, this becomes 87 cents/KWHr; most electricity today is priced at around 11 cents/KWHr.
   To power all of the narrators light bulbs for just one hour would cost nearly $60 in today's money. The cost of powering all of the light bulbs for 8 hours a day, 365 days a year would cost a staggering $173,890 (or $12,152 in the narrators time). That's enough money per year to buy not one, but TWO "ultra-luxury V-16 Cadillacs!"
   How much space do the light bulbs take up? The narrator claims to have only setup the ceiling (the walls are coming next) with the 1,369 bulbs. Assuming that the bulbs used are Mazdas, which are 7.75 inches long by 3.25 inches in diameter, the array would come out to be 37 by 37 bulbs. If there is only 1 inch between each bulb, the dimensions of the ceiling needed would be approximately 13 by 13 feet (not including space for the holders or wiring). These lights had less than 10% efficiency (45 watts go to heat, 5 go to light) and would produce just over 60KW of heat. Going out on a limb, this would be equivalent to having 15 of these "Premium Large Muffle Furnaces" all opening into one room. Toasty!
   Although "stealing power from the white companies" sounds really cool, it would probably just end up frying the narrator to a crisp in his hole. Maybe he should have just bought two Cadillacs instead.

What if Bigger...

When I first found myself reading Native Son, I was pained to the point of wanting to stop reading due to the poor choices Bigger made (or almost made). This first came along in the bar scene where, after learning about his new job, Bigger decided to rob a white man’s shop. I wanted to yell at him, telling him to grow up and take the job; thankfully, he did, but not after cutting the pool table and fighting with his friends trying to convince them to rob the shop, even though Bigger wasn’t fully onboard with the plan either.

What if Bigger had decided to rob Blum’s? Well he probably wouldn’t have ended taking the job at the Dalton’s, hiding for fear of recognition. His family would be disappointed and run out of relief food, out of embarrassment, and fear, Bigger probably wouldn’t return home. Although he would never be sentenced to death for the murder of Marry Dalton, the law probably would catch up to him and he would end up in jail.

There are so many of these forks that Bigger encountered in the book. What are some of his experiences that you found the most harrowing?