Pronoun Usage in Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neale Hurston is a very interesting author. She seems to fall into and out of lyrical language throughout her novel. There are moments where she needs to write beautifully, and then there are moments where she pulls back and just presents the action at hand. Something that I have noticed while reading, is that during these moments of beautiful, lyrical language Hurston plays with nouns and pronouns. The emphasis is mine in the following quotes.

"The people all saw her come because it was sundown. The sun was gone, but he had left his footprints in the sky. It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. It was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their mouths. They sat in judgement."

This first quote come right at the beginning of the novel and Hurston describes these people, these "sitters" as less than human. She doesn't use words with positive connotations--"mules," "brutes," "sitters," "conveniences," even "people." There is no familiarity, nor is there any love. As these "skins" are passing judgment on Janie, Hurston wants us to be passing judgement on them as well.

This next quote is right at the end of the novel...

"The day of the gun, and the bloody body, and the courthouse came and commenced to sing a sobbing sigh out of every corner in the room; out of each and every chair and thing. Commenced to sing, commenced to sob and sigh, singing and sobbing. Then Tea Cake came prancing around her where she was and the song of the sigh flew out of the window and lit in the top of the pine trees. Tea Cake, with the sun for a shawl. Of course he wasn't dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see."

The first line is so interesting to me because there are three distinct days in the list and they are coming to life in these lines and singing and sobbing and sighing. The events of Janie's life are so powerful to her that she visualizes them before her and then wraps herself in these experiences. Very symbolic.

Review: Red Rising

Red Rising by Pierce Brown
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Pierce Brown has taken something that should be familiar to any reader of the distopian genre and made it different at the same time. I can see what people are saying when they compare Red Rising to The Hunger Games. These two books are about young people entering an arena to compete in a winner take all contest. And while I enjoyed Suzanne Collins' romp, I feel that Brown did it better. His idea and world is far more original than Collins' is, the plot isn't as plodding as The Hunger Games, and Brown's prose is far more polished.

Brown excels in his world building. I was very interested in this world where man has expanded far beyond the horizons of earth and conquered the solar system. I was interested in this caste system of colors: golds at the top, reds at the bottom. I was interested in the technology, the ships, and the weapons. Unfortunately, Brown doesn't spend a ton of time exposing the reader to these interesting things. He has a story to tell and needs to get Darrow into that arena. I am hoping that Brown spends more time revealing his world to the reader in the subsequent novel. Because of this novel's ending I think that is likely.

He did take less time to establish the character of Darrow and so, I didn't care as much about his main character as I did about Katniss Everdeen. Collins spent half of her novel allowing the reader to get to know Katniss and that was preferable to the few chapters we were able to spend with Darrow before he was sent on his mission. It was difficult to connect with Darrow because of this. By the end of the novel I felt conflicted though because the Darrow at the end of the novel is so different than the Darrow of the beginning.

Overall, this was a fun read. I can't fault the book for having similarities to other books in the same genre. After all, genre simply is a way we categorize books or movies that have similarities...right? I am interested in the second and third books, but I might not get to them right away. Too many books on my TO READ list as it is.

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Summer Break 2016

Anyone who regularly reads this blog probably understands that I teach high school English. Well, that time of year is upon us once again. In a few short days, I will be going on summer vacation. My reading and enjoyment of literature will not stop, and I will try to post a few thoughts along the way. But the schedule will, once again, be disrupted. I will not be posting twice a week during the summer, but once we are back into the swing of things come end of August, Mr. Barbaric Yawp will be back at full force.

Enjoy your summer!

No Means No: Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

Mr. Collins, who annoys the dickens out of me pretty much every time he opens his mouth, has come to Hertfordshire to gain a wife. He wants to marry one of the Bennet daughters as he will one day inherit their family home and that would keep everything tidy and still within the Bennet family. In chapter 19, he has just proposed to Elizabeth:

"'You are too hasty, sir!" she cried. 'You forget that I have made no answer. Let me do it without further loss of time. Accept my thanks for the compliment you are paying me. I am very sensible of the honour of your proposals, but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than to decline them.' 

'I am not now to learn,' replied Mr. Collins, with a formal wave of the hand, 'that it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their favour; and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second, or even a third time. I am therefore by no means discouraged by what you have just said, and shall hope to lead you to the altar ere long.'"

She continues to reject Mr. Collins' proposals, eventually having to go to her parents to intervene. 

This exchange reminds me to Rochester's proposal to Jane in Jane Eyre, except that Jane does indeed want to marry Rochester, she just continues to say no because she worries about what society expects of her. 

This is a little different though. Mr. Collins is dense. He doesn't understand what is happening, he doesn't understand women, and most of all, he doesn't understand Elizabeth. His reply is rife with misogynistic phrases and ideals. First he calls Elizabeth "young" which can be attributed to a difference in age, but I believe that "young" here also connotes inexperienced and perhaps a bit of the backwardness of  country living. Collins doesn't expect Elizabeth to understand things because she hasn't "seen" the world as he has. She doesn't live in a large city, she hasn't traveled, and she certainly doesn't have the ear of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, as Mr. Collins has. He talks as if this is all a game and he has figured out the trick to winning: "it is usual with young ladies to reject and addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept." So, you're saying that women say no to men who they really want to marry because it is some sort of game? And then, in the end, he states that he will "lead" Elizabeth to the altar soon. "Lead"! He is going to "lead" her, like some domesticated animal? Like a horse, or a donkey? Can't she choose whom she wants to marry and the proper time to get married? Can't Elizabeth choose to reject your advances? Are men the only ones that can make decisions? I chuckled a couple times while reading this and the subsequent chapter because Elizabeth is so smart and quick witted, and Collins just doesn't understand. He is so sexist that it is comical. 

But it doesn't end there. Every year, we hear about college-aged men, in trouble with the law, because of things they do (or say) within their fraternities. Not all fraternities are populated with sexist, beer-guzzling jerks, but some are, and they are the ones that appear in the news. Every year we see these news-stories about women who said no, but these men didn't care. It's not that they misinterpreted, it's not that they didn't hear; these men want something and they will go to all lengths to get it. I don't see Mr. Collins playing beer-pong and wearing a visor sideways on his head, but his behavior in these chapters is a sign and type of things to come. Collins is the literary equivalent. He doesn't want to hear no, so he chooses not to. He will have Elizabeth and no other option is viable.

I feel like Collins would wear a visor like this if he were living in our era.

I haven't finished the novel, so I don't know if Collins redeems himself later on, but at this point, it is not looking good.

P6 Final Socratic Seminar: Totoro & Spirited Away

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P5 Final Socratic Seminar: Totoro & Spirited Away

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Review: Song of Solomon

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I don't know why I was worried to read Toni Morrison, but I've always been hesitant to pick up any of her books. Perhaps the worry stemmed from an idea, deep rooted, that I wouldn't like it. That happens often when I pick up something deemed as "classical fiction." They are so much work, often, that I end up not enjoying the book and not even finishing the book.

But now, I am a Morrison convert. Song of Solomon is a masterpiece in every sense of the word. I won't go into a long detailed summary of the plot, you can find that elsewhere. I will just discuss what I loved about this piece of literature.

This book was not work, it was joy. Even though there isn't much to the plot, I was entirely engrossed in the characters and their plight. These are well-fleshed out people that live and breath on a plane not entirely unlike our own. There weren't any of the fantastical trappings that are often required to hold my interest, or a break-neck-speed plot. This book burned slow and bright. The characters are entirely normal and completely foreign all at the same time. I loved Milkman, Ruth, First Corinthians, Pilate, Hagar, Guitar; they are real people and I've lived among them.

Morrison strums the symbolic harp within this work. She understands how powerful symbols and names can be and utilizes that to its utmost benefit. I am looking forward to discussing the novel with my AP Literature students next year, when a group chooses this as their Individual Choice Winter Reading Assignment. I am excited to try some ideas out on other people.

The novel is a bildungsroman, although it doesn't feel like a traditional coming-of-age novel. Milkman does indeed go on a journey, in which he learns about himself and his family, but he is tricked into going. He isn't departing on this journey to better himself internally: to open his mind and heart. Instead, Milkman is going to purely greedy and physical reasons: he wants money. But on this journey, he learns so much and becomes a man. That is why is is so devastating at the end. He just came to understand himself and his place in the world and...

Morrison's style is reminiscent of Faulkner or McCarthy. Long, descriptive sentences paint this novel with their image heavy splatter. Her diction is strange and lyrical. Beautiful descriptions abound. But, I wasn't the biggest fan of he times when Morrison would step into consciousness. At times it made the reading difficult to follow and there were times when I felt that I had missed some crucial details. That one little nit-pick is not enough to lose a star for this book though. It is indeed that good.

I will most certainly be visiting the worlds of Morrison again in the future. She has trampoline'd into my favorite author list. And to think that I at one time was afraid of her work. How naive and foolish I was.

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