Drown was not by favorite read so far this semester. The short stories connected together were a little hard to keep up with and made me a little uncomfortable on more than one occasion. I can appreciate the culture differences, I can appreciate the unique fragmented story approach, but I just couldn’t put myself into any of the stories which made it difficult for me to fully submerge myself into this novel. The issue of identity within this novel doesn’t seem to be as pronounced as it was in Baldwin’s Another Country mostly because the characters in Drown all seem to be from approximately the same cultural and socio-economical backgrounds. They’re all poor, latin/Dominican or related minority group, and most all of them touch on the subject of drug use as being part of everyday life. Another common tie between all of the stories is the lack of a strong father figure causing strain on the family unit as a whole. Either the father has entirely abandoned the family, is hiding an affair, or is hinted at being absent throughout the narrator’s life.
Maybe the real aspect of identity that I was missing was the identity of the immigrant after leaving their home country. There was mention earlier in the novel about days gone by when it was a fact of pride to be Dominican, or to be of Latin decent, but in the modern times, the times that the narrator is telling his story, there is an urgency to become fluent in English, to adopt American customs, and leave for the states and the opportunities available there as soon as possible. The modern world encourages the loss of the individual identity in favor of the group identity. There is a distinct lack of pride for the individual heritage in our society. It is no longer as important that we celebrate our roots as it once was. Part of this is because many of us can’t trace back a distinct heritage other than maybe getting as close to the continent that our ancestors came from-Europe (Midwest anyway). We don’t spend a lot of time encouraging the study and celebration of our past because we have been made to worship the identity of our nation as a culture of its own.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Baldwin
Another Country by James Baldwin is startling, intense, graphic, and beautiful. The characters are intricately drawn out as a reflection of Baldwin’s own conflicted personalities; almost as though he were trying to solve his own crisis of identity through the different personalities within his novel. Even before I found out that Baldwin was a gay African American writer, I had a sense just from reading the character descriptions that the author was gay. I don’t mean this in a discriminatory way, there are just clues that I picked up in the way the male characters describe the female characters versus how they describe the male characters.
When Baldwin describes a woman in the novel, whether it be Cass, Ida, Leona, or any number of random bar bunnies, he doesn’t linger on the aspects of the female form that heterosexual men would typically make a point to accentuate. When focusing on Cass, he usually describes the style of her hair-emphasizing its buttery yellowness or the way it’s pinned relative to whom she’s around (pinned back around her husband, Robert, let loose around her lover, Eric). He mentions her trimness, he mentions her eyes briefly, but there really was no mention of her figure, the length of her legs, the sway of her hips, the curve of her lips. When describing Leona, it’s more of a description to point out her smallness, her paleness, her face that was always just shy of being pretty, and the other details that made her a contrast to Rufus. Ida’s beauty gets the most description out of all three, but it’s a very basic sort of cut out description as though the author were following a connect the dots on how to describe a woman’s beauty. The writing felt more forced when Baldwin was describing the women and their different attributes whereas the writing involved describing the male characters seemed to have more passion and life. He captures the intimate details of the male form down to the curl of chest hair springing from beneath a shirt to the scent of their sweat. Baldwin seemed to be writing more from experience, more from the thoughts that were going through his mind while describing the male form. Reading over the way Eric describes Yves was enough to convince me that Baldwin was gay-there’s beauty and sensuality apparent in this description that you don’t find anywhere else throughout the novel. Perhaps this is why Yves and Eric are the only couple really left on solid ground by the end of the book.
The complicated relationships in the novel were fascinating to untangle. I think it was the lack of the characters understanding of their own identities that sank all of the relationships. When looking at Rufus and Leona and Ida and Vivaldo, the characters on their own seemed to have a pretty solid grasp of who they were as individuals. On their own, they were able to function in society without being questioned as to what they were doing or who they thought they were, but it was when they became a part of a controversial relationship that their identity as part of that relationships began to cause them harm. The individual members of the couples lost their identity when they became part of the relationship, they didn’t know who they were as a part of that relationship and when you don’t know who you are, how can you understand anyone else? I think that is the underlying message of the entire novel.
When Baldwin describes a woman in the novel, whether it be Cass, Ida, Leona, or any number of random bar bunnies, he doesn’t linger on the aspects of the female form that heterosexual men would typically make a point to accentuate. When focusing on Cass, he usually describes the style of her hair-emphasizing its buttery yellowness or the way it’s pinned relative to whom she’s around (pinned back around her husband, Robert, let loose around her lover, Eric). He mentions her trimness, he mentions her eyes briefly, but there really was no mention of her figure, the length of her legs, the sway of her hips, the curve of her lips. When describing Leona, it’s more of a description to point out her smallness, her paleness, her face that was always just shy of being pretty, and the other details that made her a contrast to Rufus. Ida’s beauty gets the most description out of all three, but it’s a very basic sort of cut out description as though the author were following a connect the dots on how to describe a woman’s beauty. The writing felt more forced when Baldwin was describing the women and their different attributes whereas the writing involved describing the male characters seemed to have more passion and life. He captures the intimate details of the male form down to the curl of chest hair springing from beneath a shirt to the scent of their sweat. Baldwin seemed to be writing more from experience, more from the thoughts that were going through his mind while describing the male form. Reading over the way Eric describes Yves was enough to convince me that Baldwin was gay-there’s beauty and sensuality apparent in this description that you don’t find anywhere else throughout the novel. Perhaps this is why Yves and Eric are the only couple really left on solid ground by the end of the book.
The complicated relationships in the novel were fascinating to untangle. I think it was the lack of the characters understanding of their own identities that sank all of the relationships. When looking at Rufus and Leona and Ida and Vivaldo, the characters on their own seemed to have a pretty solid grasp of who they were as individuals. On their own, they were able to function in society without being questioned as to what they were doing or who they thought they were, but it was when they became a part of a controversial relationship that their identity as part of that relationships began to cause them harm. The individual members of the couples lost their identity when they became part of the relationship, they didn’t know who they were as a part of that relationship and when you don’t know who you are, how can you understand anyone else? I think that is the underlying message of the entire novel.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Ownership of identity
This first section of reading has already got my marbles churning around the question of identity. I find myself puzzling over both how I identify with the world around me and how others are able to find their own niche. In Thylias Moss’s novel Slave Moth, the concept of finding and protecting an identity really came into focus for me. Is our identity ever really unique or is it always a reflection of where we have been placed in the world by others? Is this positioning escapable? Can we really ever evolve, transform, and recreate ourselves? How does one create a unique identity when both it and their physical being, belong to someone else? I think one of the most interesting issues covered in Moss’s novel is the conflict of ownership of self. The issue of ownership doesn’t stop at the conflict between slave and master, but it also gets examined from the perspective of husband and wife.
Varl is a slave, she is owned by Master Peter, but she is educated and held with greater esteem by the master than he holds his own wife because Varl is an oddity. He is drawn to her because she is something of an experiment. He allows her the tools of an education and as much respect as permissible and it seems as though he is waiting to see just how long she can withstand the binds of her role as a slave. He seems to tempt her as much as his wife to run away, and is intrigued by what binds her to the plantation-is it love, loyalty, or stubbornness? Given the tools and her position within the working order of the household, Varl knows what her identity should be-that of a slave-and she also knows what it is or at least what it may become. She can see in herself a dignity and a strength that won’t be subdued by the binding weight of slavery. She strengthens her resolve by creating a tangible web of words and phrases that help to shape who she wants to become.
Her identity, the identity she has created for herself within the web of Master Peter’s greater designs, is the only thing she really holds on to throughout the story. From Rals Janet’s perspective, this is a story of one’s identity being stolen. Rals Janet is suppose to be the only woman welcome within the greater workings of her husband’s heart and mind, but this position seems to have been filled long before she became his bride. Rals Janet is supposed to be the decision maker, the respected mistress of the plantation, but instead her husband seems to place Varl and Leticia above her in matters of the home. Rals Janet is suppose to be served, she is suppose to be living the life of a lady of leisure, but due to her husband’s refusal to hire regular slaves, she is forced to work alongside the few odd slaves he has purchased. Throughout this story, the case of identity is questioned and revised leaving the reader to question how their own identity is developed.
Varl is a slave, she is owned by Master Peter, but she is educated and held with greater esteem by the master than he holds his own wife because Varl is an oddity. He is drawn to her because she is something of an experiment. He allows her the tools of an education and as much respect as permissible and it seems as though he is waiting to see just how long she can withstand the binds of her role as a slave. He seems to tempt her as much as his wife to run away, and is intrigued by what binds her to the plantation-is it love, loyalty, or stubbornness? Given the tools and her position within the working order of the household, Varl knows what her identity should be-that of a slave-and she also knows what it is or at least what it may become. She can see in herself a dignity and a strength that won’t be subdued by the binding weight of slavery. She strengthens her resolve by creating a tangible web of words and phrases that help to shape who she wants to become.
Her identity, the identity she has created for herself within the web of Master Peter’s greater designs, is the only thing she really holds on to throughout the story. From Rals Janet’s perspective, this is a story of one’s identity being stolen. Rals Janet is suppose to be the only woman welcome within the greater workings of her husband’s heart and mind, but this position seems to have been filled long before she became his bride. Rals Janet is supposed to be the decision maker, the respected mistress of the plantation, but instead her husband seems to place Varl and Leticia above her in matters of the home. Rals Janet is suppose to be served, she is suppose to be living the life of a lady of leisure, but due to her husband’s refusal to hire regular slaves, she is forced to work alongside the few odd slaves he has purchased. Throughout this story, the case of identity is questioned and revised leaving the reader to question how their own identity is developed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)