When Tom Weylin dies in Dana's care, it's a very important turning point both for Rufus and for Dana. All the times that Dana had come back to antebellum Maryland, she was always able to cure what was ailing Rufus or anyone else. All of a sudden, she didn't cure someone, and it wasn't just anyone, it was Tom Weylin whom she'd had run-ins with before. Now realistically there wasn't anything Dana could have done to save him, he had a heart attack, which even with modern medicine is often fatal. Dana knows this, and deep down Rufus knows it too, but the mirage that she is this guardian angel figure is gone.
Rufus now is forced to see that Dana may not always be there to protect him and the plantation. Even worse, she can now be seen as a threat. If she didn't save Tom, why would she save Rufus? Rufus doesn't know that she's a descendant of his, so seemingly the only thing making sure she saves him is that his father would have tortured and killed her if she hadn't--a thing Tom reminds Dana on multiple occasions. He knows that when he's in danger of being killed she comes against her will, but once she's there there isn't anything stopping her from walking away from him now. Rufus has to give in to Dana a little more, because unlike before, she now holds a lot of the cards. While he's alive and lucid she is still his slave, but clearly he never knows when he'll be near death so he can't take the chance.
For Dana, she's now had someone die on her watch. As traumatic as it must be, it's liberating too (irony fully intended). Tom's death gives her the leverage to inspire fear in Rufus of what she's capable of. It also proves to herself that she can survive in that time with someone's death. Her parents died when she was young, so she knows what that loss is like, how debilitating it can be. I think she was living still in a little bit of a fantasy world that nothing was ever going to change around the Weylin plantation and she would always just be getting Rufus out of jams and playing him against his father. Now that fantasy is over and she's now gained an even stronger position in that time. Going forward, things will be different, and the unspoken understanding between Rufus and Dana is going to be even more sensitive.
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Abandonment Issues
*Note:This is specifically about the latter half of "The Fear" so potential spoiler alert, though it isn't anything very surprising.
When Dana leaves 1819 at the end of Tom Weylin's whip, Kevin is left there. He's alone, and worse yet, unlike Dana he doesn't have a way of getting home. Now Kevin does have the advantage of being White, which in the antebellum South is probably the best 'trait' you can have. Dana says she is gone for eight days, meaning that she's been gone for years in 1819 time. Kevin waited and waited and then went North. Dana is hurt by him not waiting for her. Is it reasonable to expect him to though?
I would say no. Rufus tells Dana that he waited around for a while at the plantation before finally deciding to go north. Kevin couldn't have even be sure Dana was ever going to come back. Even after he goes to the North, he still writes letters to Rufus providing his current address, so on the off chance Dana is there, she has some way of contacting him. Yet the fact is, Dana abandoned him. I realize she couldn't control it, but that is what happened. I hope for him that he did move on and find someone else, or if not another person, at least something to put him at peace in his new life.
Now I know this seems like a pretty minor detail of the whole situation to focus on, but the way Butler sets it up, it is in direct contrast with Tom Weylin's current relationship status. Tom's wife has left for Baltimore after the death of her twins, making him now twice left by women (Hannah, his first wife dying). Unlike Kevin's relative flexibility, Tom can't move because all his wealth his tied up in his land. He has to live in the same house, the same bed even.
I must admit, I haven't come up with anything to really draw from these parallel situations as of yet. However, if Kevin does come back, or if Dana somehow gets to the city he is in, it will be interesting to see how much Kevin may have changed. This change could then lend insight into who Tom was before Margaret. Perhaps when Hannah died he changed just as much as Kevin changed when Dana left. The Tom we see in the present may be a different version of his true self, maybe the past isn't as different as we normally, or want to, believe?
When Dana leaves 1819 at the end of Tom Weylin's whip, Kevin is left there. He's alone, and worse yet, unlike Dana he doesn't have a way of getting home. Now Kevin does have the advantage of being White, which in the antebellum South is probably the best 'trait' you can have. Dana says she is gone for eight days, meaning that she's been gone for years in 1819 time. Kevin waited and waited and then went North. Dana is hurt by him not waiting for her. Is it reasonable to expect him to though?
I would say no. Rufus tells Dana that he waited around for a while at the plantation before finally deciding to go north. Kevin couldn't have even be sure Dana was ever going to come back. Even after he goes to the North, he still writes letters to Rufus providing his current address, so on the off chance Dana is there, she has some way of contacting him. Yet the fact is, Dana abandoned him. I realize she couldn't control it, but that is what happened. I hope for him that he did move on and find someone else, or if not another person, at least something to put him at peace in his new life.
Now I know this seems like a pretty minor detail of the whole situation to focus on, but the way Butler sets it up, it is in direct contrast with Tom Weylin's current relationship status. Tom's wife has left for Baltimore after the death of her twins, making him now twice left by women (Hannah, his first wife dying). Unlike Kevin's relative flexibility, Tom can't move because all his wealth his tied up in his land. He has to live in the same house, the same bed even.
I must admit, I haven't come up with anything to really draw from these parallel situations as of yet. However, if Kevin does come back, or if Dana somehow gets to the city he is in, it will be interesting to see how much Kevin may have changed. This change could then lend insight into who Tom was before Margaret. Perhaps when Hannah died he changed just as much as Kevin changed when Dana left. The Tom we see in the present may be a different version of his true self, maybe the past isn't as different as we normally, or want to, believe?
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Why Three?
As I think I established with my last post, I really like war art. That's why Vonnegut's one paragraph of military action, when the two scouts are killed, really intrigued me. In class we talked about how the past perfect verb conjugation makes it less exciting, and the short declarative sentences almost innocent and childlike. There is one thing we didn't talk about in class that hasn't left my head though. Why is it "three inoffensive bangs" (54)? Two scouts, three shots, the math doesn't add up. From my understanding of military training, soldiers are taught to fire two shots at a target, "double-tapping" them. It is few enough shots that the recoil of the gun doesn't throw off accuracy by very much, but enough that if both are hits the target won't be getting up. For marksmen, for the range that they presumably got to behind the two scouts, one shot apiece would have been sufficient. Depending on who the soldiers were, that's either four or two shots, so the question remains: where does the three come from?
Vonnegut was in the Army, so he would've known what was standard operating procedure, which leads me to the conclusion that the three shots was chosen for a reason. Perhaps it is suggesting that the Germans who kill the scouts aren't real soldiers and haven't had any military training, so that while one of them needs to fire twice (or chooses might be a better word) the other elects to fire only once. This would fit with the makeup of the squad that captures Billy and Roland, with the young boys, Princess, and the old men. Or perhaps the reason for the three shots is that they didn't have enough ammunition/one gun misfired and wasn't operable. This would fit with the description of the rest of Germany, Dresden essentially, being no longer militarily capable. Either way really, it still supports Vonnegut's overall point about the war, that by the time Dresden was bombed the outcome of the war was already decided. It adds to the utter stupidity of the war, that people who have no inclination toward violence are forced into it without even so much as the proper equipment or training, and still expected to succeed for their country.
Vonnegut was in the Army, so he would've known what was standard operating procedure, which leads me to the conclusion that the three shots was chosen for a reason. Perhaps it is suggesting that the Germans who kill the scouts aren't real soldiers and haven't had any military training, so that while one of them needs to fire twice (or chooses might be a better word) the other elects to fire only once. This would fit with the makeup of the squad that captures Billy and Roland, with the young boys, Princess, and the old men. Or perhaps the reason for the three shots is that they didn't have enough ammunition/one gun misfired and wasn't operable. This would fit with the description of the rest of Germany, Dresden essentially, being no longer militarily capable. Either way really, it still supports Vonnegut's overall point about the war, that by the time Dresden was bombed the outcome of the war was already decided. It adds to the utter stupidity of the war, that people who have no inclination toward violence are forced into it without even so much as the proper equipment or training, and still expected to succeed for their country.
The Makings of a War Hero
Slaughterhouse Five is an especially important book because I am one of those people who can't read enough war novels, or watch enough movies (in fact within ten feet sits a three volume set of books detailing American involvement in World War Two, and yes they were a gift for me). Vonnegut is clearly not writing this book to glamorize war, or war art for that matter. But how is he doing so? To answer that question I want to explore a little bit of what makes movie war heroes into heroes. One quick note, for the purposes of this post I will be referring to male heroes. I just want to note now that there is no deeper meaning behind this except the majority of western art depicting war has focused on men. A movie to take on the task of examining the response to a female heroine would be Courage Under Fire, which I highly recommend.
Personality: As far as I can identify, there are two types of personalities that make war heroes. There is the guy who everyone hates because he's a cocky jerk who doesn't play nice with others. Yet, in the face of danger he routs the enemy and saves his fellow countrymen. It is his belief that he is the best that allows him to be the hero, because he knows that not only his he the best, he is so much better than everyone else that they fear him. Top Gun is a prime example, Maverick (Tom Cruise) is this man, no question about it. The other type is the quiet unassuming man, hard working yet never a standout who in the face of battle finds his voice and successfully leads his men out. Damian Lewis' portrayal of Dick Winters in Band of Brothers shows this type of hero. He is catapulted during the war to higher and higher positions of authority, all the while still maintaining his unassuming personality.
Style: This may not seem as obvious, but since the beginning of action movies, style has played a big role in pointing out the hero and the villain. In thirties movies it was the color of hats (white and black of course). As America became more militarily active, the color of the uniforms, even if they weren't actually Russian, German, Chinese, etc. was meant to show the audience who to cry over. Even today in police movies, think about how the main character is normally dressed--he's probably wearing a suit but not a nice one, and doesn't look very comfortable in it. Off duty he probably wears a hoodie while he still tries to solve the case. The bad guys can be classified as gangsters or gangstas depending on the dress. Big imposing men in suits belong to the gangster realm, while the typically young gangsta has more jewelry, more tattoos and baggier clothing. Think of the famous Louis-David painting of Napoleon crossing the Alps, do you not get a sense of his power and strength by how is he dressed, and his flair while being perilously close to death?
Humanity and Self-Sacrifice: What sets apart heroes from villains often is not the amount of people they kill but their reason and feelings behind it. Villians kill for themselves, heroes kill because they have no choice. When James Bond kills Steven Obanno in Casino Royale it was because Bond was attacked and his kill is to save himself and Lynd. You can see his pain in a later scene in the shower though, how much of a toll it takes on him to be constantly flying around the world and killing people. Self-sacrifice is also important in the building of a hero. In Air Force One a random F-14 pilot throws his plane in the way of a missile to stop hit from hitting Air Force One and killing the President. Or in Captains of the Clouds, after a German pilot has destroyed two of the unarmed bombers, James Cagney steers his plane right at the German to bring him down. In both movies, the pilots know that this action will result in their death, and yet they still do it, for the mission is more important than their own life.
In a nutshell, those things make a hero. Billy Pilgrim doesn't fit any of those things specifically, Vonnegut goes to great lengths to make sure he clearly doesn't. Roland Weary looks more like a gangster than a hero. The scouts leave men behind. The British are closer, but their noble duty-bound attempts to escape look foolish because their in the middle or a Russian POW camp, and their cavorting with the Germans is not very heroic. Edgar Derby is probably the closest thing to a hero in Slaughterhouse Five, but with repeated assurances that he will die over a teapot by the end of a novel, this undermines his budding heroism. For what Vonnegut is trying to accomplish, it makes sense to not make a hero out of any character. That way, people like me don't read it like an exciting, flag waving war novel.
Personality: As far as I can identify, there are two types of personalities that make war heroes. There is the guy who everyone hates because he's a cocky jerk who doesn't play nice with others. Yet, in the face of danger he routs the enemy and saves his fellow countrymen. It is his belief that he is the best that allows him to be the hero, because he knows that not only his he the best, he is so much better than everyone else that they fear him. Top Gun is a prime example, Maverick (Tom Cruise) is this man, no question about it. The other type is the quiet unassuming man, hard working yet never a standout who in the face of battle finds his voice and successfully leads his men out. Damian Lewis' portrayal of Dick Winters in Band of Brothers shows this type of hero. He is catapulted during the war to higher and higher positions of authority, all the while still maintaining his unassuming personality.
Style: This may not seem as obvious, but since the beginning of action movies, style has played a big role in pointing out the hero and the villain. In thirties movies it was the color of hats (white and black of course). As America became more militarily active, the color of the uniforms, even if they weren't actually Russian, German, Chinese, etc. was meant to show the audience who to cry over. Even today in police movies, think about how the main character is normally dressed--he's probably wearing a suit but not a nice one, and doesn't look very comfortable in it. Off duty he probably wears a hoodie while he still tries to solve the case. The bad guys can be classified as gangsters or gangstas depending on the dress. Big imposing men in suits belong to the gangster realm, while the typically young gangsta has more jewelry, more tattoos and baggier clothing. Think of the famous Louis-David painting of Napoleon crossing the Alps, do you not get a sense of his power and strength by how is he dressed, and his flair while being perilously close to death?
Humanity and Self-Sacrifice: What sets apart heroes from villains often is not the amount of people they kill but their reason and feelings behind it. Villians kill for themselves, heroes kill because they have no choice. When James Bond kills Steven Obanno in Casino Royale it was because Bond was attacked and his kill is to save himself and Lynd. You can see his pain in a later scene in the shower though, how much of a toll it takes on him to be constantly flying around the world and killing people. Self-sacrifice is also important in the building of a hero. In Air Force One a random F-14 pilot throws his plane in the way of a missile to stop hit from hitting Air Force One and killing the President. Or in Captains of the Clouds, after a German pilot has destroyed two of the unarmed bombers, James Cagney steers his plane right at the German to bring him down. In both movies, the pilots know that this action will result in their death, and yet they still do it, for the mission is more important than their own life.
In a nutshell, those things make a hero. Billy Pilgrim doesn't fit any of those things specifically, Vonnegut goes to great lengths to make sure he clearly doesn't. Roland Weary looks more like a gangster than a hero. The scouts leave men behind. The British are closer, but their noble duty-bound attempts to escape look foolish because their in the middle or a Russian POW camp, and their cavorting with the Germans is not very heroic. Edgar Derby is probably the closest thing to a hero in Slaughterhouse Five, but with repeated assurances that he will die over a teapot by the end of a novel, this undermines his budding heroism. For what Vonnegut is trying to accomplish, it makes sense to not make a hero out of any character. That way, people like me don't read it like an exciting, flag waving war novel.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Ownership of The Word
In African-American Lit last year I remember there being a discussion on the use of the n-word by African-American writers. There has been a debate going on over it being used in the same sort of context by non African-Americans (namely Whites) and the appropriateness of it. Essentially those in favor of its use being "decriminalized" believe that if they can say it why cant we? I must admit I never agreed with this argument but I never really exerted much energy thinking about the issue. Then as I was reading Mumbo Jumbo I ran across something that I interpreted as a similar thing to me. Reed is telling the story of the Atonist rise to power in Ancient Egypt with a large section focusing on Moses. He relates Moses saying to the Osirian Egyptians that, "I will unleash the Holocaust upon you this time if you persist in this action" (Reed 185). Now I know that holocausts have happened to people all over the world throughout history up to the present, and that the Holocaust (which I grant you I am inferring to mean the one done by the Nazis under Hitler) happened to many more groups of people than just Jews, but this one short sentence out of the entire book offended me.
Earlier, Mr. Mitchell asked our feelings on the portrayal of Whites in Mumbo Jumbo, I didn't have any issue with it. But because it is Moses saying this, it was just too far for me. I shouldn't have been offended, and even when I first read this I realized that, yet I still was. Even nearly seventy five years after it happened, the Holocaust is still such an open wound for Jews worldwide. Perhaps because it is often misremembered in history as being something that only happened to Jews, or maybe for some reason that I can't think of but the Holocaust is something Jews seem to own now. My first reaction was along the lines of "What right has Ishamel Reed have to make any kind of ironic joke out of the Holocaust?" And to some extent I still feel that way, but I'm coming to see it now as less about it being Moses as a Jew and the Holocaust as something that happened in part to Jews, and more about history itself. Reed is totally rewriting the common understanding of Ancient Egyptian history, so why can't he also make Moses into a Hitleresque figure? Whose really to say that if you flip their lives that those two men would have been any different? I think that is the point Reed is trying to get across, though I am still disconcerted by his choice of topic and the language he uses to accomplish it.
Earlier, Mr. Mitchell asked our feelings on the portrayal of Whites in Mumbo Jumbo, I didn't have any issue with it. But because it is Moses saying this, it was just too far for me. I shouldn't have been offended, and even when I first read this I realized that, yet I still was. Even nearly seventy five years after it happened, the Holocaust is still such an open wound for Jews worldwide. Perhaps because it is often misremembered in history as being something that only happened to Jews, or maybe for some reason that I can't think of but the Holocaust is something Jews seem to own now. My first reaction was along the lines of "What right has Ishamel Reed have to make any kind of ironic joke out of the Holocaust?" And to some extent I still feel that way, but I'm coming to see it now as less about it being Moses as a Jew and the Holocaust as something that happened in part to Jews, and more about history itself. Reed is totally rewriting the common understanding of Ancient Egyptian history, so why can't he also make Moses into a Hitleresque figure? Whose really to say that if you flip their lives that those two men would have been any different? I think that is the point Reed is trying to get across, though I am still disconcerted by his choice of topic and the language he uses to accomplish it.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Epigraphical Rebel?
Ishmael Reed is really breaking convention by starting his novel Mumbo Jumbo on the literal first page in the book. This is so much of a convention, to start it later in the physical book, that when I heard where he put the first chapter, I wondered to myself if that was even legal (perhaps legal is the wrong word, but a violation of some agreement in the publishing world). This sets the tone for the book, as one that will not follow standard literary conventions. What this also does, is make those interim pages between the first and second chapter be seen. The copyright pages really aren't important to authors I presume, that's in the realm of the publishers. But the epigraphs really are. Just like every word in the narrative is chosen by the author, so too are the epigraphs. Why would anyone spend time finding the perfect quotations to put in the epigraph if they didn't want their readers to read them.
There are three quotes in the epigraph, though it is my understanding that the second and third are both James Weldon Johnson from his work The Book of American Negro Poetry. Looking at the first one, attributed to Zora Neale Hurston, I couldn't help but feel that this is akin to how Ernest Hemingway put the Gertrude Stein quote "You are all a lost generation" as his first in The Sun Also Rises. In it, Hemingway is not only describing one theme for his novel, dealing with the generation born out of war, but he is also paying tribute to Stein for being his mentor and helping get him to the place where his modernist novel could make it through publishing. While I have no biographical knowledge of Reed and Hurston's relationship, if any, I do know that Hurston is one of the most well respected writers to come out of the Harlem Renaissance, helping to pave the way for African-American authors to be accepted by main stream (White) America. Perhaps Reed is not being as rebellious as the location of his first chapter may suggest.
The final two quotes from Johnson are integral, even more so than Hurston's. Without them, the whole meaning of the first few chapters is unclear. "jes' grew" doesn't mean much out of context, at least it didn't for me. After the first chapter I started suspecting it was the early forms of Jazz, but as "jes' grew" is a focus for the beginning of the novel, a suspicion of its meaning is hardly something to base your understanding of a novel on. In the epigraph though, Johnson is telling us, if not explicitly, just what "jes' grew" is. Reed put that in there so that readers of the epigraph would have a better understanding of his novel. It would be out of rhythm for him to define it somewhere in the narrative itself, so the logical place is then in the epigraph. How do you get a reader to read the epigraph? Put it in the middle of the novel, not before it. It doesn't look like Reed was being as much of a rebel after all, now does it?
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Dropping the Gloves
Being a lifelong sports fan, and especially a baseball one, when I read that Father was going to take his son to a game I was very excited. I expected none other than Honus Wagner or Ty Cobb to come marching in to the Polo Grounds, and just so happen to talk to Father and the boy. Instead, we get a rivalry game between Boston (pre-Ruth) and the Giants. Father only picks up on the ugliness of the sport, the fighting, the cursing, spitting, etc. Attention is specially paid to the team "mascots," Boston's midget, and New York's fool. Charlie Faust, the Giant who is mocking the game delusionally was actually a real member of the Giants in 1911 by the way. Towards the end of the game Father thinks to himself that, "What he saw was not baseball but an elaborate representation of his own problems accounted, for his secret understanding, in the coded clarity of numbers that could be seen from a distance" (231). And I think he is right, in part.
I too saw the connection of this game to Father's life, though more so in the events of the game than the numbers they created. Essentially, the way Father describes it, fans are paying to watch the violent intensity of the game. They egg on the players, cheer when one side draws the blood of the other, and will go home happy when a hard fought (literally) game was put on for their amusement. Indeed sports have often been explained as a metaphor for war, only one more socially acceptable than say gladiators fighting to the death. Is this not what is happening in New Rochelle? Coalhouse starts things off by attacking the Emerald Isle Fire Station. After that the other side responds with a manhunt. But things really start once the press gets involved. Coalhouse saves one of the firemen in an attempt to extract Conklin's location. But this also allows him to report the events in detail to the police, and the press. Coalhouse also delivers two letters to the press within the hour of the attack. He wants the public spectacle, he wants "the crowd" cheering him on like they do during the baseball game's fight. After his second attack on Fire Station No. 2, the New York press come into town to cover the story. Here the tale of the vengeful Coalhouse reaches national notoriety, much like say a big baseball game.
Ultimately the game serves as a tangible representation to Father of the two sides of the fight that he is watching unfold right in from of him. There is Willie Conklin, the home team, who abuses his authority under the belief that the fans will "root, root, root for the home team." Then we have Coalhouse as the away team interloper, upsetting the balance of New Rochelle. When Conklin overplays his hand, the townspeople abandon him, and then only focus on the violence, locals living in fear of it, nonresidents watching in earnest. It would seem Coalhouse defeats the home team, but then they both go to the New York for a continuation of The Series, this time on Coalhouse home field. Who's going to win the pennant? I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
I too saw the connection of this game to Father's life, though more so in the events of the game than the numbers they created. Essentially, the way Father describes it, fans are paying to watch the violent intensity of the game. They egg on the players, cheer when one side draws the blood of the other, and will go home happy when a hard fought (literally) game was put on for their amusement. Indeed sports have often been explained as a metaphor for war, only one more socially acceptable than say gladiators fighting to the death. Is this not what is happening in New Rochelle? Coalhouse starts things off by attacking the Emerald Isle Fire Station. After that the other side responds with a manhunt. But things really start once the press gets involved. Coalhouse saves one of the firemen in an attempt to extract Conklin's location. But this also allows him to report the events in detail to the police, and the press. Coalhouse also delivers two letters to the press within the hour of the attack. He wants the public spectacle, he wants "the crowd" cheering him on like they do during the baseball game's fight. After his second attack on Fire Station No. 2, the New York press come into town to cover the story. Here the tale of the vengeful Coalhouse reaches national notoriety, much like say a big baseball game.
Ultimately the game serves as a tangible representation to Father of the two sides of the fight that he is watching unfold right in from of him. There is Willie Conklin, the home team, who abuses his authority under the belief that the fans will "root, root, root for the home team." Then we have Coalhouse as the away team interloper, upsetting the balance of New Rochelle. When Conklin overplays his hand, the townspeople abandon him, and then only focus on the violence, locals living in fear of it, nonresidents watching in earnest. It would seem Coalhouse defeats the home team, but then they both go to the New York for a continuation of The Series, this time on Coalhouse home field. Who's going to win the pennant? I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
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