Class+Notes+February+17

    Merrill 1 Brian Merrill Modern American Fiction Dr. Laura Nicosia February 19, 2010  //Class Notes for February 17, 2010 //   When coming to class students should make sure that they come with an element of the reading to discuss. In //Cane,// we looked at the //Blood Burning Moon, i//t discussed the difficult and sensitive of a subject of race and lynching. Lynching is a product of our culture and past and it must be addressed. We avoid the subject because it is horrific, uncomfortable, and what a great injustice is was to mankind. Lynching needs to be looked at and addressed. It’s a focus of the Civil Rights movement, attention to our nation, and especially to black writers.  When reading the //Blood Burning Moon// we have to ask ourselves, what are some of the themes, the structure, or the ideas of the novel, and do we like it them or dislike them? Many students felt that it was a tuff subject and it was still sinking in and they were absorbing the material. The story is thricky, because it is laced with refrains, repeating courses, and thought motifs. In the text the “N” word is used often which makes it difficult to have a conversation about. Jean Toomer, (the author) uses phrases, regionalisms with his language, and vocabulary of a Southern dialect to bring realism to the text. He speaks as the character would; however, to know him, he is educated and has no regionalism in his voice what so ever.   Merrill 2  For many public speaking can be a daunting and frightening task to overcome. Our professor Dr. Nicosia has worked tirelessly to remove the regionalism from her own voice. She did this through public speaking at her college. She felt that she wanted to be scholarly and to do so saw public speaking as an avenue to refine her voice to speak in such a manner. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Toomer engrossed himself in the Southern culture by absorbing the ways of the people and their culture and returning his knowledge to the text. Toomer had a way with writing that it became affected by his surroundings which spilled out onto the pages. Toomer was criticized and picked on by other writers because they felt that it wasn’t right to be using phrases that were not of his own language. In //“Things Fall Apart//” he was considered a trader for writing in //English//. People said that he was a traitor for writing with a dialect. He was criticized as being false. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Jean Toomer shows love, sex, language, and the true ways of the South. In //Blood Burning Moon// it’s written in sections. These sections show a different point of view, persona, and a shift in the narrative act. Toomer is bringing to light moments of change in the text by using numbers. These numbers show time which puts things in a sequence and a temporal expression. These numbers gives thing in the text priority and importance. They numbers can also be seen as dehumanizing to the characters, which makes it an oppressive act. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> The real question we have is what is lynching all about? Why and how come did it take place? There are many reasons one can speculate, possible black people as a race, maybe someone has hatred, or even ignorance and ultimately power. Slavery was in place in such a way that a master could lynch a slave if he wanted too it was his right. It was done as a public act to put fear in other blacks. It was seen as being parallel to a crucifixion. Some of the men who hung <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Merrill 3 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">the blacks wore masks to hide their faces. They were hung in public spaces, from trees, pillars, and columns. It was done as a warning to the masses. It showed that they were animals which put fear in the minority. Back then you could be hung for many reasons. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Who are the main characters to //Cane//? The three main characters are Tom, Bob, and Louisa all faced with the complication of race. It’s a story of a black man and a white man, who both have a desire for the love of a white woman. It’s a triangle of love-which shows the polarity of men and women, black and white, society and class. Many ask what is Louisa’s role and is she innocent or a victim? She is actually a woman that has very little choice and is much oppressed. Bob has power over her for sure, but she maintains her innocence. She likes the attention of Bob and she plays both sides of him. She’s coy and accepts the dress and stockings that he gives her, all the while having feelings for Bob. She’s excited about meeting Bob in the cane fields, and she is fearful and but also sexually excited. She has a womanly glow when she thinks about Bob. She secretly meets him in the cane fields, because of their forbidden mixed race relationship. The only people that know of the relationship are the men in town. The men from up North would disapprove of such a pairing. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Tom can get the words out to Louisa about how he really feels, he says, you take my words away. This means he’s speechless, but he loves her. He’s actually saying it without saying it. A piece of written art like this shows how form meets function. In this instance Tom becomes a different man, he becomes more rounded. Whereas the first two sections of the book he was flat <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">when he was described. Tom was a big man, with big hands; he was more than his physical appearance. The way Toomer wrote Tom at this time was shocking to the reader because there <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Merrill 4 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">were few African American protagonists. Tom is a very different character for many to understand and wrap their brains around, because of Toomer’s crafty ways of writing. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> A climax in the story is when Bob confronts Tom. They get into an altercation where Bob and Tom have a knife fight. Tom is defending himself and the woman that he loves. Bob (white character) is the aggressor who is attacking Tom because he’s jealous. Tom eventually pins Bob to the ground. This makes Tom the dominate male, which makes Bob feel that his manliness has been taken away. Bob is enraged because of this and no longer feels like the alpha dog. His position for Louisa is not one of love like Toms is, it purely lust. What is understood is that Tom relationship with Louisa can’t happen and he won’t be able to make her his wife. What is happening in the story is that Bob can’t stand to let a white man take claim to a black woman. Bob is more afraid of Tom than angry. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Jean Toomer was a privileged writer who only knew of his world. He wrote about a group of people without agency. Many see his writing as courageous and having guts to write the way he did. Toomer rarely used punctuation, spelling or conjunctions; this was cause for alarm in the writing community. He was criticized for writing without proper grammar by editors. Toomer has short phrases that pop out and grab your attention in the text. They were usually three words long, they are little jabs which are called a staccato. His way of writing is violent in form by the quick, short bursts of his phrasing. This makes it harsh in its speed, form and function. He has a purpose by making it short and clipped. Also by having short sentences and fragments it shows <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">his disregard for modern writing structure. He wants to make you feel uncomfortable. An example of this is on page 36, of the bok //Cane//, when he writes the scene with Tom and the kerosene in specific <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Merrill 5 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">detail. It depicts a graphic and horrible death. This action by Toomer shocks the reader and proves to be distasteful. This recalls a Christ like image of Tom tied to the stake, baring his sins of his culture, and being used as an escape goat for the black race. This scene is very biblical in nature. Toomer is very artistic with his sentences bookending the text at the opening and closing of the story with the same reference of the //skeleton stone wall//. This is a cleaver trick by the author to bring the story around full circle. The sentences that are short get longer near the end of the story, which eventually calms the reader and slows the pace down considerable. Toomer style is very fluid in its nature and the story becomes very passive in the end. There is definitely beauty in the sentence structure to the way he writes. He also has a unique way of making the reader see in the text as if things are happening in quick succession, almost like a montage of movie clips, distorted images, making it hard to grasp and take in. This makes his writing complex in its structure, but however showing that it’s Modernism at its peak. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">