124's importance

Throughout Toni Morrison’s Beloved, the house has a significant presence. “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom.” are the first words of the novel, but the reader has no context to know what that means. Soon after this strange introduction, we learn that 124 Bluestone Road is where Sethe and Denver live. We also learn that the house is haunted by the ghost of Sethe’s firstborn daughter, Beloved. Beloved’s possession of the house remains through most of the novel, even after the introduction of her “reincarnation”.  

The haunting makes it seem as though the house has a personality largely based on the emotions and experiences of Beloved and how she is affected by the other characters. From being “spiteful” at the beginning, to “loud” due to conflicts between Beloved, Sethe, and Denver, to “quiet” around the time where Beloved disappears. As readers, during this haunting, we never really get the sense of terror by the characters involved, as there would be in a something such as a possession oriented horror movie. Denver and Sethe are not scared in any way by the house. Denver in particular shows a strong connection to it. She tells Paul D that it only feels “[l]onely and rebuked”

It might be important to note that before even Baby Suggs moved to 124, the owner of the house, Mr. Bodwin, remembers that “women died there: his mother, grandmother, an aunt and an older sister” This significant female emphasis may add another level of reason to certain situations in the novel, such as Paul D’s interaction/fight with the ghost and Stamp Paid’s hesitance to enter the house without invitation (something he normally had no problem doing).  

The BU Creative Writing 104 Experience

One of the most attention grabbing aspects of Gunnar’s Boston University experience, were the white students and professor that Gunnar interacts with. Gunnar’s first class is a poetry workshop, and the students must stand and introduce themselves to the class. The first few students are obviously accomplished, but have a slightly obnoxious way of speaking and presenting themselves. Their depictions somewhat parallel the arrogance of the students at El Campensino Real High and Gunnar is consistent in not being afraid to challenge things he disagrees with, as he has throughout the novel. When Gunnar eventually introduces himself, the professor and class are instantly stunned. “(...) I never dreamed you'd take my class.” Then Sylvia Plath shows him a collection of his poetry called Ghettotopia: An Anthropological Rending of the Ghetto through the Street Poems of an Unknown Street Poet Named Gunnar Kaufman. Gunnar immediately questions what “street poet” is supposed to mean. To them it can't just be poetry, it was written by a black boy from a lower income, racially segregated area in a larger city; it must be street poetry. It's an outside looking in perspective, and to them it's just cool to observe a culture completely different from their own. The next scene is one of the most absurd instances of cultural appropriation I’ve read. A blond, white woman with cornrows (because they name her feel powerful) named Negritude. As this is the first post Civil Rights Movement novel we've read, this is the first real experience with cultural appropriation we've encountered. Previous books have had minstrel show references and implications, but during the overtly racist segregation era the sole purpose behind it was to belittle black life and black people. The White Boy Shuffle takes place in the 1990s, so hip hop and R&B were gaining more and more popularity and celebrities like Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan were extremely prominent figures of American culture at the time. Now it was cool to enjoy or take part in black culture and white people had the bonus of not being black.

When Negritude demonstrates how to “welcome home an Ashanti warrior returned from the hunt with a fresh kill.”, Gunnar decides he's enough and dashes out of the room, only to be followed home by the class. He gives up his usual bravery and defiance, and for the first time Gunnar just has a sense of hopelessness. Even so called white liberals are completely ignorant and useless to progress. This sense of hopelessness is only fostered by the subsequent events in the story, leading to Gunnar's final mindset and serious contemplation of suicide.

White Boy Shuffle Initial Thoughts

Paul Beatty’s White Boy Shuffle has been an incredibly enjoyable yet different read so far. Gunnar Kaufman’s funny, sarcastic, and self aware way of storytelling combined with the post Civil Rights Movement setting, gives the story a unique atmosphere. In the prologue, Gunnar tells that he is (or has to be) the messiah of black Americans, which is in stark contrast to the troublemaking elementary school student living in a majority white Santa Monica we find in succeeding chapters, just like Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. Invisible Man’s narrator and Gunnar are both even viewed as “harmless” or model black people by the whites in their communities. Where White Boy Shuffle differs from Ellison’s novel, is the initial mindsets of the protagonists. At the beginning of Invisible Man, the narrator seems to be presenting the reader with passive observations of everything happening around him, or is so focused on one particular thing (e.g. the speech or keeping his scholarship) that he doesn’t really provide his own input or perspectives. Gunnar, however, is much more apparent in showing the reader what is on his mind. In Chapter 1, when Gunnar is describing his family's history, he shows particular shame in how his father reacts to his white coworkers racist comments/jokes, deciding for himself that he wasn't going to laugh. This is the first instance of a young Gunnar showing a more independent, observant and thoughtful mindset. In Chapter 2, when Ms. Cegeny gives her colorblindness lecture and students list things like the justice system as “colorblind processes in America,” Gunnar chooses to reply with simply, “Dogs.” His response emphasizes the foolishness and ignorance of the students’ answers and the lecture in general. His reluctance to do things like even bring up black heroes he read about to his friend, David, shows he has a long ways to go until he reaches his “messiah” status. I am looking forward to seeing how the experiences he has living in West LA will change his perspectives.  

The Similarities in Chapter 1 and 11

While reading Chapter 11 of Invisible Man, everything that was happening to the narrator felt very familiar. This chapter shares eerily similar ideas and events with Chapter 1. One of the first similarities that struck me was both chapters put the narrator in situations that affect significant aspects of his future. Whether it was getting a scholarship to college to continue his academic life or getting operated on to keep him alive, to the narrator, he needed to be in those settings. However, while these situations are so important to the narrator, he pretty much has no control whatsoever of what is happening to and around him. In Chapter 1, when he is at the gathering of the town’s most accomplished white citizens to deliver his graduation speech, he is forced to take part in a blindfolded “battle royal” against other black boys his age and then tricked into being electrocuted. In Chapter 11, he has even less control. He wakes up, not remembering anything and barely being able to move, only to be then operated on by unknown doctors (they use electrical shock treatment on him). Something else these two chapters share is that literally, they make no sense. Why did they have the narrator and the other boys partake in a battle royal, confuse them as to whether or not they should look at a naked white woman waving an American flag and trick them into shocking themselves in a gathering that’s purpose was for the narrator to recite his speech? The entire setting of Chapter 11, in itself, doesn’t really make any sense. What kind of factory has an entire hospital attached to it? Both of these chapters feel like a dream/nightmare, when you accept whatever is going on, no matter how ridiculous it seems when you think about it after waking up.

            There are many more little details each chapter had in common, but there was one major difference that I found notable. After the anger and disappointment he felt after learning what Bledsoe wrote in the letters and the feeling of freedom he gained after eating the sweet yams, the narrator has a very different mindset compared to the first chapter. During that scene in Chapter 1, he seemed to just be passively observing everything happening to him, never questioning, like a dream. With his new mindset, Chapter 11 shows him questioning what the doctors were doing, expressing how he felt at certain points and even making jokes in his head. The fact that Ellison put the narrator in a situation parallel to the very first chapter, but with a different way of thinking, shows significant growth as a character. Also, on a slightly unrelated note, during the class discussion on Chapter 11, we found it to be a kind of rebirth of the narrator, which I found interesting that it happened in a chapter so similar to Chapter 1. 

Blindness

Richard Wright’s protest novel, Native Son, might seem pretty simple from a plot standpoint. The story follows Bigger Thomas, a young, black male living under terrible (yet normal) conditions in the Southside of Chicago during a pre-Civil Rights movement era, who accidentally kills a white woman and has to deal with the consequences. However, as you delve deeper into the novel, Wright’s commentary on various issues regarding social justice in America become apparent. Themes of environment affecting actions and critiquing white liberalism are just a few of many that Wright incorporates in Native Son. One of the most intriguing ideas Wright explores is his use and interpretation of blindness throughout the story. Blindness, used both literally and figuratively, is shown through different characters and their actions.  

The first time Wright introduces blindness is with the character, Mrs. Dalton, who is literally blind. Before Bigger actually is confirmed that Mrs. Dalton is blind, he makes the assumption based on her eyes and “ghostly” appearance. After his interaction with the Dalton’s, he returns home and comes up with a realization about his own family. They are influenced by some “force, inarticulate and unconscious, making for living without thinking (...), making for a hope that blinded”. He realizes that they are unable to see that no matter what their situation is, they are not in control of what happens to them. This blindness to the limitations white society imposes on black people frustrates Bigger. They have all of these expectations of him, but they don’t understand the extreme limitations he has as a black male.