Lil

White Boy Shuffle is funny. When the first line of the entire book threw around a level 3 expletive like it was nothing, I knew automatically that I would love it. Granted, the expletive in question is a super gross and misogynistic one, but for some reason I was kind of okay with it in this context. Maybe I'm wrong for that - let me know. But either way, the humor throughout the book is exactly the kind of humor that I love. It sarcastic and dry but at the same time it's fun. It's exaggerated and unrealistic, but it knows that and it doesn't care. It doesn't take itself too seriously, but it it's also conscious - it calls out things that are important, like police brutality or the issues with "multicultural" education. It sometimes feels like Beatty is writing just to write or like he gets caught up in his own imagination. The book is filled with details that are just unnecessary - it seems like their only function is to screw with us. But that's

One thing that I've found really interesting while reading  Beloved  is the theme of colors. It's something that has kept coming back throughout the book, and it's clearly really meaningful and symbolic. We're told that Baby Suggs has this weird  fascination with colors – she constantly wants to be shown different colors by Sethe and Denver. The way Sethe sees it, 124 is so devoid of color, it makes sense that Baby Suggs would be so “starved for colors.” Apparently everything in their house is either brown, grey, white, or some other muted, neutral shade. The only things that have any color are two patches of orange on a quilt. It seems depressing, and it is. But, what makes it more depressing is thinking about why exactly 124 is devoid of color. We’re pretty much given the answer – after Beloved dies Sethe stops seeing things by their colors. It reminded me of when Denver was asked a question she couldn’t handle and went deaf for years. One sentence which was especia

In his criticism of "Their Eyes Were Watching God" Richard Wright calls Hurston out for not being political enough and instead contributing to harmful stereotypes of black people. Something that we talked about in class though, is that on some level the mere existence of "Their Eyes Were Watching God" seems to be political. For one, Hurston chooses to focus her novel on the experiences of a strong, independent black woman, and that in and of itself is important. Further, the novel's focus on entirely black people, and on different all-black communities is another aspect that makes it inherently political. Harmen said something in class which I found really interesting. He said that the novel almost resembles some of the romantic novels that we would (and did) read in 19th century literature. But, instead of a cast full of upper class white people, the roles are played by black people. The fact that Hurston is writing what we might consider "normal" lit

As we finish our discussion of Invisible Man  I wanted to write about one of my favorite chapters in the book - Chapter Three, the Golden Day chapter. As chaotic as it is, I love the idea of the Golden Day; it's an isolated part of society where ordinary social norms and hierarchies don't apply. As soon as Mr. Norton walks in, he is ridiculed and mocked by the patients. They call him Thomas Jefferson and John D. Rockefeller and make other jokes that importantly, are at his expense. We talked a lot in class about how important laughter and humor are in Invisible Man - they function most often as a means of undermining someone's authority or importance. Specifically, the jokes that compare Mr. Norton to any other white guy are powerful because they basically send the message that Mr. Norton is of little importance or concern to the patients. He might as well be any other person and in that sense the patients' jokes really serve as the first warning that something is diffe

One thing that I’ve been thinking about a lot is the narrator's development from the submissive, naïve kid he was at the beginning of the book to where he is now. We talked in class about whether or not he has truly discovered invisibility, or if he’s still being “kept running” by someone or something and I honestly don’t think there’s one right answer. On the one hand, I think he genuinely seems to have developed more of a consciousness and one scene where this is evident is the one where he talks to Hambro about the Brotherhood’s real intentions. When he’s told that they are basically abandoning Harlem, the narrator gets genuinely upset in a way that suggests a deeper consciousness, at least compared to the beginning of the book. He questions Hambro – he asks why. Why does it have to be Harlem that they’re “sacrificing?” One line that stood out to me was, after Hambro says “It’s inevitable that some must make greater sacrifices than others…” and the narrator replies, “That ‘som

We’ve mentioned the ‘yam scene’ a few times in class, but we haven’t quite gotten to it yet so it’s pretty much uncharted territory for the moment. I think it’s a super important scene for a lot of reasons, but the most important one is the sense of freedom that the yams bring the narrator. He leaves Mary’s house needing a breath of fresh air and a break from his inner turmoil, and the yams end up bringing him a huge deal of clarification. He says immediately after eating the yams that he is “overcome by an intense feeling of freedom” and I don’t think that he’s truly experienced this feeling yet in the book (pg 264). I was definitely a little confused at first – that eating yams from the street can inspire an inner revelation in someone seems pretty weird – but then I thought about all the times that I’ve gone somewhere on my own, or bought something on my own and I understood a little better. Being in a situation where you answer entirely to yourself and everything you do is on