Racial and Ethnic Identity

Part I: Name one surprising fact you discovered about any of this week’s authors. Why did it surprise you?

Part II:  Most of the works this week were somewhat specific in terms of location. How might the perspective have changed if the events were placed in a another location? For instance, lynchings took place in the North, as well as the South. What is the significance of placing “Song for a Dark Girl” in the South? How would the impact have changed without that information? That is only one example. 

Part III: Although the focus of the week was race and ethnicity, Morrison, Hurston, and Walker present strong female characters. What characteristics do these stories imply are desirable? Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of any one of these characters. Use examples from the text to support your argument.

Submission Instructions: As with every “main” forum post, please make comments substantive (in at least 300 words). Use quotations to support your points, but make sure to balance them with your own original ideas. Finally, please engage two of your classmates in their forum posts to help further our conversation. Please be sure to check back to read and respond to anyone who responded to your forum as a common courtesy. Respond to classmates’ posts in at least 100-150 words each.

Reading & Resources:

“A Month in the Country” by Jay Wright

“Song for a Dark Girl” by Langston Hughes

“How it Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston

“Sula” by Toni Morrison or “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker

“What You Pawn I Will Redeem” by Sherman Alexie

“The Third and Final Continent” by Jhumpa Lahiri

“The Conversion of the Jews” by Philip Roth

“The Day the Cisco Kid Shot John Wayne” by Nash Candelaria

or “The Last of the Menu Girls” by Denise Chavez

Student Response #1 – Martin

Part I:

One interesting fact I discovered this week is that Native American Author, Sherman Alexie suffers from bi-polar disorder.  This has played into his work.  Through the depression times he speaks of struggling to leave his bed however, when in the manic state he beams of writing entire novels in two weeks.  From this he argues that most of the world’s great art comes from manic periods of an artists life.  I have never put much thought to associating great writers and their mental limitations…or might it be their mental strengths.  For example, greats like Sylvia Plath who plummeted into depression while still in college.  Similarly there was Ernest Hemmingway (one of my personal favorites as he lived in my home state of Idaho) who too suffered from depression and bipolar disorder. (McCann) 

Finally, I found it interesting that Alexie spoke of harnessing this disorder and utilizing its powers to produce his works.

 Part II:  

In the poem, A Month in the Country, author Jay Wright describes escaping the wiles of New York to the countryside of New Hampshire.  In it he eloquently describes in detail the picturesque scene of this home, and its “right” perfectness that it portrays, but he is haunted by the silence and uneasiness of being alone, not only in person but in color as well.  But being in the New England area he can sense that all of the locals (to include the dogs) are likely more uncertain of his lone presence than he is of theirs combined. 

Transversely were he to have ventured from the wiles of city life in the South into the countryside of a state like Mississippi or Louisiana this suspicious state would be quite different.  The fear of accompanying the night would not be that of the wind however likely all unplaced sounds would lead to fear of self preservation and living to see another day.  Likely too the childlike ignorance found in the little girls greeting would never be found in the South at that time.  In fact there likely would be no salutations at all but more disgust and disdain for his very presence.

Part III: Although the focus of the week was race and ethnicity, Morrison, Hurston, and Walker present strong female characters. What characteristics do these stories imply are desirable? Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of any one of these characters. Use examples from the text to support your argument.

In Alice Walker’s Everyday Use, the character named Dee (Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo) expressed both characteristics of strength and weakness.   From the start the narration from the mother details of how Dee was the strong one, never looking back by getting her education looking to the future and somewhat ashamed for her poor and simple upbringing.  In fact the mother recalls how when their old dingy house burned to the ground concentrating till the last board fell to the blaze.  Dee was also living a blessed life being allowed to go to Augusta for school and how through this she became far more educated than her mother an sister.  She was also a determined woman wanting nice thing and looking to the future and power from being smothered by the people who oppressed her (that is after all why she changed her name).  But inside all of this strength there also can be found weakness.  When asking her mother for her grandmothers hand stitched quilts, the mother expressed how she had promised them to her sister and in this she was put off.  Not thinking of other just herself and how she wanted to hang them up and display them, whereas her sister would likely use them until they wore out and felt only she could appreciate them. 

However, here she was the one who moved on, has nice things and living a life of luxury, yet she still could not appreciate her own sister’s needs…the same sister who had watched Dee get everything in life!

Sources:

McCann, Kim. “5 Writers who suffered from mental illnesses & the impact it had on their art.” The Airship. 9 December 2014 <http://airshipdaily.com/blog/022620145-writers-mental-illness?utm_content=buffer90b78&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer>.

Student Response #2 – Dana

PART I

A surprising fact that I learned about an author this week was that Toni Morrison was the only one, out of these authors, to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1993. She won it for being an author “who in novels, characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality” (Good Reads). And in 2001 she was named one of “The 30 Most Powerful Women in America” by the Ladies Home Journal (Good Reads). Most of the information I read about her was actually in Wikipedia, I know that source is frowned upon but it had so much information on her in one place. She is such an accomplished author. Her book, “The Bluest Eye,” was great and was made part of Oprah’s Book Club many years back. From what I’ve read about her she seems so humble, even with her great accomplishments.

PART II

I think that the importance of the settings for these stories is to help the reader better imagine the story. You almost feel as though you are a part of it. For instance, Zora Neale Hurston’s “How it Feels to Be Colored Me,” she begins by describing the little town she grew up in. It made me feel like I was there. Either as someone walking down the street, receiving one of Zora’s greetings, or standing in the yard with her, as she watched the white people pass through the town on their way to or from Orlando (Hurston).  Without having that information or even changing the location, I think the story would have had a completely different meaning. I know I would have imagined it differently.

If you get the chance, you really should read her novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God.” This is a great book!

PART III

I thoroughly enjoyed the stories by Morrison, Hurston, and Walker. Their stories brought the reader to see that a strong woman was a desirable characteristic. In Walker’s story this is seen in Dee’s (Wangero) character. From the beginning she is clearly a strong, independent person. She also seems to flaunt her “blessed” life of being able to go off to school and gaining a great amount of knowledge over her mother and sister. She is quite determined to have a better life than she did living in that small three room house. She changes her name in an attempt to overcome what she considers that oppression of her given name. She later returns home and tries to take a couple handmade quilts that her grandmother made. Her mother informs her that they were promised to her sister and Dee, thinking only of herself, points out that her sister will only use them and wear them out but that she will hang them for display and appreciate their pricelessness. In this, her weakness is seen when she fails to account for and appreciate her sister’s needs and feelings. Dee realizes that you don’t always get what you want just because you think you are the better person.