Close Reading "America"

"America," by Claude McKay:

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate.
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, nor a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Time's unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.""

My understanding of this poem is that it is a black man's perspective of his home country, a place he loves but feels hate reciprocated from. He talks about America with the pronouns "her" and "she," claiming that she has done horrible things to him (or more likely, all African-Americans), but has also inspired and invigorated him with her spirit and strength.

Questions:
1. The title of this poem clarifies who exactly "she" is; without it, we could guess what the speaker may be referring to, but it could prove vague if we don't know who the author/speaker is.

2. The only word I am uncertain of here is unerring. According to Dictionary.com, unerring here means: "invariably precise or correct."

3. There is definitely rhyme in this poem, e.g. tooth/youth, blood/flood. There is also some alliterations in the first two sentences, and in the thirteenth line. The meter is fairly even -- the lines are equal in length.

4. What is literally happening in this poem is the oppression of blacks in America, the American spirit explained through the eyes of one of its compromises (slaves and black people), and the foreseeing of a near-future demise of some kind in America.

5. Some strong images I found in this poem include the "bread," "her tiger's tooth," "tides in my blood," "flood," "Darkly I gaze into the days ahead," "granite wonders," and "priceless treasures sinking in the sand." He's using the "bread of bitterness" and "tiger's tooth" to show how America has hurt the black people. The "vigor [flowing] like tides into [his] blood" and the flood represent the spiritedness of America that, though working against blacks, inspires them as well. "Darkly gazing into the days ahead" and the sinking treasures acts as a prediction of the downfall of America as the speaker sees it now.

6. I know the speaker is living in America because the poem takes place there. I know that America has been an enemy of sorts to him. I know that he recognizes in America an ability to strengthen its constituents though a sense of pride and patriotism. I know he feels that strength flowing through him as well. He also is not scared or hateful toward America. He seems to know something the reader does not. He predicts an ominous future for the America he lives in now. He speaks of this future as a source of revolution for him and his fellow sufferers. He wants good for America, but wants it through a change he finds essential for the success of its future. And finally, he is an oppressed youth, as he states clearly in the poem.

7. The tone of this poem starts out ominous but ends with a sense of hope for what's to come. Words that help set these tones include bitterness, stealing, confess, hell, vigor, strength, hate, rebel, terror, malice, jeer, darkly, might, unerring, priceless, and sinking.

8. This poem is formally structured with even rhymes and length of lines. It offers an almost lyrical feel, like the speaker is telling a story, though we know that the end of the story has yet to come. The structure also lends a strong and powerful voice to the people who are often mistaken to be completely devoid of strength.

9. The tension I find in the poem is really in the beginning and end of the poem, specifically:
(1) "And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,"
(2) "Stealing my breath of life, I will confess"
and (3) " Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand."

10. Some resonating images and words that still strike me from this poem include the tiger's tooth and treasures sinking in the sand. I think both of these lines showcase the most tense and emotional parts of the poem, the tiger's tooth showing the pain that the black people feel America has inflicted upon them, and the sinking treasures being a beacon of hope. When I see the treasures sinking, I see a black man watching them from a distance with a smirk on his face, like he knew it was coming all along.

After close reading this poem, I understand the emotions more deeply than at first glance. From the first reading, you feel those blatant emotions like injustice and revenge, but underneath all of that is a strange sense of gratitude for America and a sense of belonging from the speaker. I feel it pains him to see America in this light despite the truth in it. I feel he also has a great deal of hope and sees great potential in America and what it could be capable of after retiring its anti-black attitude. There's a lot of contradiction but not in a senseless way. The contradiction stems from the speaker's experiences of suffrage from the past and his hope and prophecy for the future.

Midterm Essay Prompt

I found number 5 on the list of possible prompt topics to be very interesting:

"Examine the role of death in multiple texts. In what different ways is death portrayed? Why might death be thought of or experiences differently in different texts?"

This seems like a strong place to start, tough as I begin to write, I may find a more specific question to ask. For now, I think I want to focus on these four texts: "As the Lord Lives, He Is One of Our Mother's Children," by Pauline E. Hopkins, "Chickamauga," by Ambrose Bierce, poems numbers 340, 448, and 479 by Emily Dickinson, and poems numbers X, XIV, and "I [Do Not Weep, Maiden, For War Is Kind]," by Stephen Crane.

I chose these because the two stories are very heavy on race and the Civil War, while Dickinson's and Crane's poems are more about the general idea of death (though there is emphasis on war in Crane's). I want to make sure I'm able to compare and contrast the differences between these writers in terms of their interpretations of death in the different contexts of which they are represented.

Crane Parody

In the depths of Misty Mountains
I saw a creature, haggard, grotesque,
Who, hiding in the shadows,
Held a ring in his hands
And worshipped it.
I said, "What is it friend?"
"It is my precious," he answered
"My own, my love... my... preciousssss."

Washington Vs. Du Bois

W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington were both intelligent, hard-working, successful black men. The roots of their fruition, however, were vastly different.

Washington was a young boy when he began working in a salt factory. He learned to read on his own and later attended a school for freed black slaves and worked in a coal mine. He paid his way through college working as a janitor. After his graduation there, he worked as a teacher, which would later become his career.

Conversely, Du Bois was born to non-slave parents and attended a school right off the bat and thrived there. He wrote for African American newspapers and was elected valedictorian. He attended the prestigious Fisk University by the aid of a scholarship raised just for him by local ministers and teachers after his mothers's death. He was awarded grants, went to college in Berlin, earned a Ph.D., and started publishing books.

These divergent boyhoods, in my opinion, greatly influenced both Du Bois' and Washington's views on the course of black people. Respective to their upbringings, Washington suggested the black people to, in Du Bois' words, "give up, at least for the presesnt, three things, -- First, political power, Second, insistence on civil rights, Third, higher education of the Negro youth" (466). Instead, he wanted the Negro to "Cast down [their] bucket[s] where [they] [were]" (442), emphasizing that they should use the resources available to them at the time being to prosper, rather than fight for other (but more desirable and powerful) resources that are out of reach. This ideal is very reflective to how his childhood defined him: by a modest beginning and hard work in physical labor.

Du Bois' suggestions to gain the right for black people to vote, demand civil equality, and offer quality education to all black children reflect his upbringing as well, considering his lifetime of education and attending schools with whites, never being held back because of his race and instead being encouraged forward because of his intellect. His views are more militant in the sense that he is urging for an upheaval of sorts to get what the black people deserve, rather than quietly bide time waiting for a gradual revolution of the black man like Washington suggests. Washington's slow and subtle tactics are more conservative. He wants black people to work in the vocation known well to blacks already; "in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions" (443).

I understand and respect what Washington meant when he said that "there is something in human nature which we cannot blot out, which makes one man, in the end, recognize and reward merit in another, regardless of color or race" (449), meaning that by fighting and forcing the white man to accept and equal himself to that of the black race, the recognition of that race is not sincere. Instead, he believes allowing the white man to come to the conclusion himself to give recognition to that race allows for a more amiable and less violent form of revolution.

Despite my respect for his theory, I must side with W.E.B. Du Bois. This may be because living in 2012 America, I know that race is still a touchy subject and that the freedom of blacks wasn't really fully accepted until the 60s or so. Knowing this influences me to want the black people of 19th century America to fight for their equality, right to vote, and education (and more). I think the incredible plight against the black race merits an equally incredible crusade for their well-earned equality in this country. Had I been asked the same question in the 1890s, I may have answered quite differently, but Washington's passive approach to black equality doesn't earn my vote. Du Bois has, in my opinion, the superior strategy.

Response to Natalie on Grandison

I agree with Natalie that there is great situational irony when Grandison escapes at the very end of the story with his family, because the whole story built him up to be a faithful, happy slave who wanted to return home desperately. He even returns after being abandoned in Canada by Dick Owens; now that shows commitment. Then, he turns around and escapes. That's the last thing to be expected when throughout the whole story Grandison is seemingly completely dedicated to his life as a slave.

I must disagree, however, with the passage Natalie used to exemplify verbal irony. In her bog she said that the line, "You could have knocked me down with a feather," on page 240, is an example of verbal irony. In this case, I think because it is an expression, it does not qualify. When someone says, "You could have knocked me down with a feather," we know that they are implying they were so excited or shocked about the news they just received that they were weak in the knees and could therefore be knocked over with even the lightest touch -- like that of a feather.

Instead, we must look for something that, when said, the speaker (or narrator) means the exact opposite, usually unbeknownst to the receiver of the dialogue. For example, on the same page is the sentence we discussed in class: "The poor nigger could hardly crawl along, with the help of a broken limb." By using the word help the narrator means the exact opposite. A broken limb is anything but helpful. This is verbal irony.

It's small tidbits like this one that can be easily overlooked as irony, so maybe instead of looking at longer sentences or paragraphs, speculate over those choice words that just don't sound quite honest, be it from the voice of a character or that of the narrator.

Oh, the Irony

Charles Chesnutt's "The Passing of Grandison" is a story with hidden ironies, both verbal and situational. Let's take a look:

A first example of verbal irony is written in narrative about Owens' determination to lead Grandison to freedom. The narrator says:
"When two weeks had passed without any apparent effect of evil example upon Grandison, Dick resolved to go on to Boston..."
Here, I believe the author is using "effect of evil" as irony against Colonel Owens' opinion of the abolitionists up North who try to persuade visiting Southern slaves to run away. The author doesn't really believe these free blacks' intent is evil at all, but the opposite - it is virtuous. Their intentions are, anyway.

The second example of verbal irony I found was during their stay in Boston:
"Dick sent [Grandison] on further errands from day to day, and upon one occasion came squarely up to him - inadvertently of course - while Grandison was engaged in conversation with a young white man in clerical garb."
At this point, Dick has been trying different tactics to get Grandison to run away on his own accord. He's had him run errands and left him alone countless times, but each time he returns home, Grandison is there, ready to wait on him. When the author says "inadvertently, of course" in this sentence, he does not mean it. To be inadvertent is to be careless, but Dick is very concerned with Grandison and is indeed very attentive to him in his secret mission to "lose" to the North on this vacation.

Two situational ironies I found are when Charity Lomax and Dick have a discussion about his leaving Grandison in Canada, and the obvious one - when Grandison runs away after returning to the Owens' home, along with his family.

First, when Dick tells Charity that he left Grandison in Canada, she is somewhat angry with him for doing such an "outrageous" thing, which I have reason to doubt she really means since in the beginning she thought the man who had been tried for leading off a slave to be a man of some action, unlike the indolent Dick, and even compared them, saying that at least the other man had tried to do something virtuous and courageous. Here, she is reacting in the opposite. Next, she says:
"But I presume I'll have to marry you, if only to take care of you. You are too reckless for anything; and a man who goes chasing all over the North, being entertained by New York and Boston society and having negroes to throw away, needs some one to look after him."
So now she suddenly decides to marry him. I certainly did not see that coming. I thought she would at most find Dick Owens to be of enough action to give him a chance. And the fact that the reason she will marry him is to care for him and his recklessness, the very recklessness he did to sway her to love him, is a reason I would not have thought. I figured if she did give him the time of day after his return, they would be together and if they did eventually marry, it would be because she delighted in his sudden accomplishment and truly loved him for it.

Second, the obvious situational irony of the whole story: Grandison's real escape at the end of the story. Throughout the whole narration, Grandison's character is rendered unambiguous in any way. Time after time, when given the chance to run away, he does not. In fact, he is scared of the abolitionists - of being taken by them. He seems totally faithful and grateful for his master, almost like a son's love for his father. Never does he waiver in conviction. There is not one moment given to suggest he is considering to run away. Furthermore, after Dick leaves him in Canada, he finds his way back home and through terrible conditions to boot. Then, after all this determination, he ends up running away with Betty, his wife, his mother, aunt, father, uncle, two brothers, and sister. It seems this truly faithful servant was not faithful at all. He simply wouldn't run away without his family.

Responses to Small Blogs (Week 3)

Response to Natalie:

"If we were to take the “storm” as a metaphor, then one could state that the storm was the feelings Alcee Laballiere was having while he was at Calixta’s home."

Though I agree that the "storm" acted as a metaphor for feelings, I believe it was for Calixta's feelings, not Alcee's. I say this because the emphasis was put on Calixta and her emotions, emulating the pattern of the storm outside. However, the storm could have also simply been a metaphor for the encounter. Like we talked about in class, maybe the storm is a means of cleansing for Calixta, who feels contained in her role as a housewife to Bobinot and mother to Bibo. The storm rolls in (i.e. Alcee and his desires) and makes its turmoil (the act of infidelity), but then passes, leaving a cleaner and brighter day behind it (the clarity Calixta has that allows her to resume her role as loving mother and caring housewife). Then again, maybe we are all totally wrong and Kate Chopin meant the storm to be simply that, a storm.

Bierce and Twain

Bierce's "Chickamauga" and Twain's "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed" are both compelling and alternative ways of showing the experiences of war. I personally loved "Chickamauga." The language Bierce uses and the point of view through which he tells his story drew me in right away. Using the innocence of this boy and his play sword seeing for the first time the terrors of wartime was deeply stirring. I found Bierce's detail and uncensored truth gripping. The most terrible, but best line (in my opinion) in "Chickamauga" was this:

"The man...turned upon [the boy] a face that lacked a lower jaw - from the upper teeth to the throat was a great red gap fringed with hanging shreds of flesh and splinters of bone" (127).

Twain's story, on the other hand, was funny. The scenes with the soldiers bickering and tumbling over each other in the wood showed just how unprepared they were for the military life. Like the innocence of the boy, these soldiers don't know what they're really doing and are risking their safety, constantly fleeing from Union soldiers rumored to be hovering their fleet. They never really knew how to handle a confrontation of that nature, despite the role they chose to take as soldiers. The old man at the house they retreated to chastising them shows just how little they knew of what they were doing:

"The old gentleman made himself very frank, and said we were a curious breed of soldiers, and guessed we could be depended on to end up the war in time...He wanted to know why we hadn't sent out a scouting party to spy out the enemy and bring us an account of his strength...before jumping up and stampeding out of a strong position upon a mere vague rumor" (100).

And in both stories, the main characters have a moment of somber realization of the danger they'd been in. The men in "The Private History" shoot a man who had no backup, no weapon, and they weep over their kill, even though in war, that's what any other soldier would have done. Similarly, the boy finds his mother shot in the head at the end of Bierce's story, and only then truly feels the severity of the happenings around him.

Both stories show a view of the Civil War unlike any other wartime story I've read. In fact, I grumbled to myself when I found out we had to read these stories. But when I realized they were so different, I was pleasantly surprised. Bierce and Twain used innocents for perspective. The average American - especially women and children and the affluent - would know nothing about fighting in the war, but neither did these characters. It was a way to open the eyes of the public through characters just like them. Killing a man and feeling the guilt of his death, and running into a swarm of mutilated, dead and dying bodies - those experiences would greatly affect any American just as it did the boy and fleet of soldiers.

The following lines are of (1) the moment with the soldiers shot dead the man on horseback, and (2) the moment when the boy finds his mother shot dead:

"The thought shot through me that I was a murderer; that I had killed a man - a man who had never done me any harm...[The boys] hung over him, full of pitying interest, and tried all they could to help him...I thought with a new despair, 'This thing that I have done does not end with him; it falls upon [his wife and child] too, and they had never did me any harm, any more than he" (Twain 104).

"There...lay the body of a woman...the long dark hair in tangles and full of clotted blood...The child moved his little hands, making wild, uncertain gestures. He uttered a series of inarticulate and indescribable cries - a startling, soulless, unholy sound" (Bierce 129).