Song of Solomon Entry 8 - Reflection

Brendan Cosgrove
              In both novels my lens remained relatively similar, dealing with issues of race through time in America.  In both the matter of the treatment of black people in the south is crucial, however the Song of Solomon concerns race more directly

Song of Solomon Entry 7 - Responding and Reflection

         While reading Song of Solomon one thing stuck with me the most, that being Milkman's sense of confusion with his culture and race.  Milkman grew up in a middle class environment and because of that he feels a certain disconnect between himself and other people of his ethnicity.  I feel same way more or less about my race not because of a socio enconomic difference but just as much of a cultural barrier.  I grew with people not of my race and aside from having a Chinese mother there was never much Chinese cultural influence in my childhood. That's what I got out of Song of Solomon.

Song of Solomon Entry 6 - Experts

       Toni Morrison's An Excursion in the Black World raises the idea of the two responses to oppression that black people take.  The first kind is that of the militant.  The idea that the only way to combat oppression and violence is through violence and resistance.  This response is embodied by the character Guitar, who in response to the oppression he has faced creates a black nationalist group known as the Seven Days.  This group pledges to kill a white person for every black man killed. On the other hand, the protagonist, Milkman comes from a more black middle class background and does not share the same views as his friend Guitar.  Morrison draws a connection between these characters and Malcom X and MLK in their differing approaches to their predicament.

Song of Solomon Entry 5 - Close Reading

"'What'd he do it for?' asked Freddie.  "He Knew he was in Mississipi.  What he think he was at Tom Sawyer land?" Song of Solomon Pg. 81

In this quote one of the characters is discussing the murder of Emmett Till after it was announced at the barber shop.  Till was killed or "stomped" to death in Mississippi upon supposedly whistling at a white woman.  The analysis here comes in when Freddie enters the conversation.  While some of the men in the barbershop (all black) respond with anger and outrage as seems appropriate there is another viewpoint present as well.  Freddie seems to instead see the fault as laying with Emmett for not knowing better than to do what he did while in a southern state.  This view is important as it indicates a certain attitude of the time.  The acceptance that a person can be killed not for breaking any rule or law, but for simply stepping out of their place.

Huck Finn Entry #4 - Responding and Reflecting

 Brendan Cosgrove

              Reading Huckleberry Finn through the historical and biographical lens, there was one thing that caught my interest.  Mark Twain intended for his book to be read in quite a different way than how we as highschoolers in 2015 read it.  In his time Twain was practically a liberal visionary in his inclusion and depiction of a black character.  However, today we see none of that and only the racist undertones still present in his writing.  Though hailed as a progressive in his time and for many years after, Twain's view have again been relegated to the racist past.  It makes me wonder whether one day we will look back on the views of today with the same repulsion, and if that were the case, in what way the public view will have. shifted.

Huck Finn Entry 3 - Experts

Huck Finn Entry 3 - Experts

Brendan Cosgrove

The article From Sunup to Sundown gives a more historically grounded look at slavery in Pre-civil war Missouri.  According to the article slaves spent the majority of their lives working and were required to get up at daybreak and work till dusk.  On top of back breaking work, slaves were often subjected to extremely harsh treatment.  While there were laws against the cruel and inhuman treatment of slaves, they were largely ignored as slaveholders felt a need to instill fear in slaves.  Another aspect of the mistreatment of slaves was the psychological devaluation they suffered.  White slaveowners did all they could to champion the idea of black people’s inferiority, contending that “the lowliest white person...was better than the most cultured and intelligent black.”  This attempt had a double purpose.  First, to consign blacks to their place as slaves, convincing them that they were inherently meant to serve.  Second, to dodge the moral and ethical implications of enslaving another person by promoting the image that slaves were “happy inferiors.”  In response to the arguments of abolitionists, slaveowners claimed that work is the natural element of a black man some even claiming that blacks were grateful to be enslaved.  It is this fabricated image of slavery which is most often present in Huckleberry Finn.  Mark Twain refuses to explore the harsh realities of slavery instead choosing to represent Tom as a bumbling oaf often caught napping under trees.

Responding and Reflecting Song of Solomon

Through reading the novel Song of Solomon, I have learned that feminism can be interpreted in many different ways, not just one. Feminism can be when women become stereotypical women and act how society defines a women should act. But, it can also be when a woman who stands up for herself and acts the way she wants to act and is not perfect.  I have also learned from the feminist lens that women should stand up for what they believe and they will be happier, but if they don not stand up for themselves and just do what society makes them do then they will have a unhappy life.

Feminism has appeared in the novel in two different ways. One way that we see feminism in this novel is through the character of Pilate. Pilate is a character who is not the stereotypical women. Pilate dresses that way that she wants to dress, not the way the she is supposed to, or the way that other people want her to dress. She also does want she wants, she lives alone and even though it is illegal she has her own job. Ruth is another character in the novel. Ruth is known as the stereotypical women.  Ruth is a housewife which means, that she is always home, she does not have a job and she has to listen to everything that her husband says. Ruth is also very unhappy with her life because she feels empty and she tries to escape into a fantasy world by having a good relationship with her son and her father.

I think that this novel shows an important message because not only does this novel show woman standing up for themselves, but it also shows that all women are beautiful regardless of their race or skin color. It shows that females should not change their appearance to look similar to someone or to fit the “standard of beauty”. I think feminism is something very important and women should be treated equally as men even in novels. They should have the same amount of characters and not only have women as background characters.

Final Reflection

Reading the novels, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Song of Solomon through the feminist lense was a really interesting experience. It was really interesting to see that feminism has been around for so long and to see how it has changed throughout time. It was also really interesting to see how the “stereotypical” women has changed throughout the years. Something that I learned with this project, is that women have always been pressured to fit in what society defines as a “perfect” women.

The feminist lenses was pretty similar in both books. The way that it was similar is that in both novels the women in the books had a specific roles to follow and they would try to fit in the standard women category. The specific role that they had to follow was the role of being a role model women, and being a stereotypical women.

One thing that I got from the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, that I probably would have not gotten if I did not read the novel though the feminist lens was why the novel didn't have many female characters, and when they did have one why she was always a background character. If I hadn't been reading his book through the feminist lens I would not have gotten this because I would not have understood why all the women that were in the novel fell in the “stereotypical” women and why their was no main female character. Some of the things that I feel like I missed from the novels as a result of focusing on my lens would have to be how different people were treated based on their race. I feel like race was a big issue in both novels, but I was not able to get a lot of information on race because I was focusing on how feminism was being used in the books.

Some of the benefits of using a critical lens is that you get to focus on a specific viewpoint of the book. Being able to focus on a lens helps you understand better the book because you can go more in depth on why things happen through your lens. You can also research your lens and find out the history of it and see how it has been changing over time. Some of the downsides of using a critical lens are that you do have to focus only on one lens, so its harder to be able to read the novel through a different point of view.

Critical Lens Expert, Song of Solomon

In the article, “Why don’t he like my hair?”, the author Bertram D. Ashe talks about how women in the novel, Song of Solomon, care a lot about their physical appearances--especially, Black women care a lot about their physical appearance because they want to be able to fit in the  “White standard of beauty” (Ashe 179).

Not all Black women want to change their physical appearances to fit the image of the ‘perfect’ woman. In the novel, Song of Solomon,  Hagar is black female who tries to change her physical appearance so she can be “more desirable” to her husband (Ashe 179). Hagar tries to change her hair, so that it can be “silky copper colored hair” (Ashe 179).  Hagar wants her hair to be different so that she can fit under the category of  the “white standard of beauty” (Ashe 179). Pilate Dead is another character in the novel. She is very different than Hagar. Pilate Dead does not care if she represents the “White standard of beauty” (Ashe 179). Hagar always has her hair “closely cropped” she does this because this represents nature or natural beauty (Ashe 179) . Having her hair closely cropped represents nature because her physical appearance is a natural appearance since she is not doing anything to her hair to look different.

While reading Song of Solomon, the standard of female beauty was also strongly imposed through their attire. Women could not dress or act the way that they wanted; they have to dress and act in a certain way. When Macon asks Pilate,  “Why can’t you dress like a woman?” (Morrison 45) it's interpreting how Pilate is not dressed as how a woman should be dressed. “Don’t you have stockings? What are you trying to make me look like in this town?” (Morrison 45) Macon is more worried about what other people might say when they see the way Pilate is dressed rather than how Pilate is. Stockings represented something that is very feminist while a sailors hat is more masculine. This is why Macon yells at Pilate for wearing a sailors hat.

Reading the novel Song of Solomon and the article “Why don’t he like my hair?” I learned that Black women hair grows very differently from White women hair. So, Black women do stuff to their hair so that they can change the way it looks to look more like White women hair. They do this because they want to be able to fit in the White standard of beauty.

Song of Solomon Critical Lens Experts: Racial/ Cultural Lens

Harry Reed’ s Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon and Black Cultural Nationalism insist in how the past can be used to fuel the future. He explains that in the black culture the past of slavery to fuel them to success and to really push themselves to be better in their own ways. I agree with this statement that things from one's past should be used to help them get motivated to do better in the future. Some examples that show this through Song of Solomon that the character of Circe saying that she had used the past of slavery to blacks as a way to be pushed to survive as a black woman. I Think I really support this in that the past can help you to get far in the future because I know that there have been a few times in my life that I have thought of the last of my family like in education they didn't finish high school and when I was in high school I had been really motivated to finish high school because I know that my parents didn't do that so I want to finish and I am. Lessons that we can learn from Harry Reed is that by using the past of either of your racial history or your family history it can be used in many ways to help you be successful in the future like for Circe it was to have the survival power to be able to survive as a black women in a society that looked down in them or for me in having to look at the struggle or challenges that my parents or past relatives had gone through to be able to push myself to be better in what they had did and to set an example to others around me to be successful in life.

Final Project Reflection

When I first heard the project was going to be a blog, I remember being confused on how it was going to work, or if it would work at all. We were reading two books, but we were looking at each one separately and doing most of the blog entries only talking about one of the books. While doing blog entries was much more interesting than I was expecting, I still don’t think it was executed as well as it could have. I believe it would have been better to have more comparisons between the books, otherwise I wish I could have gone more in depth with one novel, and have blog entries on things like analysis of a character or comparisons to media representation if there was a movie version of the book or something like that.

However, one thing that I really did enjoy was looking at the novels though a lens. I originally started with psychoanalytical and historical, but in the end it turned into mostly psychoanalytical. I wish I had been better about using both lenses together, but I struggled and ended up dropping the second one. I thought it was really good to use a lens because it was harder to get too overwhelmed by all the information. It’s easy to have so much information you are trying to take in, that you don’t end up taking in any and can’t comprehend everything. On the other hand, it makes your analysis a bit narrow-minded. I would talk to people who had a different lens about a certain passage, and we would have vastly different opinions on it, just because we didn’t analyze it from the other’s lens. It also was the reason some obvious happenings would be missed because I was focusing so much on my lens, that I didn’t notice anything else.

Final Project Reflection

Final Project and Lens Reflection

This was a very tedious, dull, and frustrating project. About 3 quarters of the way through the only thing I felt was to get this done. The only evident presence in both of the novels was Song of Solomon, where it was made clear that the degradation of blacks put them in the lower class of american society, that because of their ethnicity, they weren’t able to advance up the social ladder for higher pay and get the lifestyle they so desperately craved. The Adventures of Huck Finn didn’t contain as much Marxism as I thought, it seemed that Twain was pushing it to the side. I only managed to interpret it through the interactions with Huck and Jim, with society seeing Jim as dead weight, and only someone to work the fields. Song of Solomon, however; had more than enough Marxism presence. As Milkman copes with his situation and deals with the many heartbreaks he committed and understands there’s more to life than his dull life than just the money, he undergoes transformations that make him more of his influence and morals are now instilled in his financial attitude. But aside from hard analyzation of these blogs and the agitation it caused me, I think these novels were half and half situations, both of them being boring as heck but still kept me reading. Normally this happens with all books the school assigns me to read. Unless it’s something I consider interesting, which only happens when I am at least a chapter or two into the story. These stories were likewise. The benefits of using a lens in real life could come when you are seeking a job. This might be a skill that many others do not share or use. But there is no further practical use as to what I have so far listed. My beliefs have certainly not changed at all, but I found it a very useful tool to use during this project. This project was helpful in discovering where any critical lens are present, but I leave this personal advice: don’t use a project like this again next year.

Song of Solomon Reflection and Response

While Song of Solomon as a whole was fantastic, what really caught my attention and has stuck with me was the ambiguous ending. At the end of most novels about finding one’s self, it ends with the character setting off into their world a changed person, or having died trying. Basically, a very clear path for the future, or none at all. However, Toni Morrison decided not to follow that common route. Instead, after Milkman found himself, one of the most important people in his life died and he was faced with a dilemma that forced readers to question what happened. Even more than that, readers were forced to question what finding himself really did to Milkman.

Before Milkman found himself, he was an extremely materialistic, emotionally stunted person, who put a lot of effort and focus on what he wanted, which kind of reminds me of the Freud's ego. However, after he found himself, while he started to understand his emotions, Milkman also seemed to become much more impulsive, which reminds me more of Freud’s id. Stereotypically, it is more desirable to for the ego to be in control of one’s conscience, and the id is associated with childish behavior and immaturity. None of this really came to mind until I read the last few lines of the novel.

“Without wiping away the tears, taking a deep breath, or even bending his knees- [Milkman] leaped. As fleet and bright as a lodestar he wheeled toward Guitar and it did not matter which one of them would give up his ghost in killing arms of his brother. For now he knew what Shalimar knew: If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.”

The impulsivity that Milkman showed was new and one that definitely identified with the id. This made me question Morrison’s thoughts on what society should value in a person and what she believes a person should be. It seemed that she wanted to emphasize the idea that having too many emotions and acting on irrationally on them is better than acting emotionless in most aspects of life. It’s interesting because society tells us now, and during her time, that keeping your mouth shut and going with the flow of what happens is the best thing to do, and emotionally rash decisions are going to get people hurt. I believe that Morrison used the ambiguous ending to tell her readers that finding yourself may mean letting go of control and the willingness to get hurt or even die, so long as it means being your true identity.

Final Project and Lens Reflection: RACIAL/CULTURAL LENS

As I was reading Huckleberry Finn and Song of Solomon things that I had learned between the two is the racial/ cultural issues that were in place during two different time periods but both had the issues of discrimination of the black community. They had both shown me different perspective in the way that black in america for Huckleberry Finn written a couple of years after slavery had ended and then the lives of blacks nearly a century after slavery ended. The difference between the two are the amount of racism like in Huckleberry Finn there was more racism than in Song of Solomon which it seemed that there was discrimination between the classes within the black community. In Huckleberry Finn it seemed that blacks would get more inequality of treatment from the american with the use of the n word that had been used many times by the character in the book as a negative term to put down the black community. The difference between Huckleberry Finn and Song of Solomon is that in Song of Solomon it seemed as if there was less,of what I had read,of a split between black and white just what I had seen was from the hospital of not admitting black but had changed when Smith's daughter was going into labor. There was  split that had seemed to be within the black community that he has seen in the first two chapters when the Dead family was going around town and seemed to discriminate blacks with the amount of money they had a the things that they could afford. For example the Dead family seemed to be in a higher class of blacks in town rather than Guitar who was in the lowest class and had struggles with poverty through his life.