Kindred is about a history inextricable from the annals of American heritage. That's an easy answer, since it's mostly set in the era of slavery in America with all the requisite horror of racism and inhumanity. However, even in that simple reading, slavery isn't presented as some grand idea of ignorant mistakes of the past but as a indoctrinated system that spread across color lines and generally made everyone miserable and hateful. That's not me saying that; it's apparent in Mr. Weylin, Margaret, Rufus, Alice, and Sarah, all people who each fall prey to weakness in character and anger in deed. It's telling that of all the characters, the slaves are the only ones to ever be shown experiencing joy with their "party of [the] husking", a celebration free from the literal and figurative shackles of having slaved in fields (229). Slavery could be forgotten, but it wouldn't be illegal until several decades after Dana last arrived, and its effects are still felt in 1976 with Kevin and Dana's families not being keen on their marriage.
Speaking of families, that idea leads into the deeper meaning of my point. Slavery tore families apart: a literal separation for black people, and for the Weylins, a figurative separation of isolated people who end up sharing only the bigotry of that era. But more specifically, Dana and Rufus are separated by over 150 years of thought but still find a shared animosity that fits to any tense family situation, say if one family member could have another killed with impunity.
Under those disagreements, though, Dana needed Rufus to survive for her sake, and Rufus needed Dana to live for his sake. During their last moments together, Rufus confesses that he dreams of Dana: "I'd dream about you leaving me" (254). He says it so frankly and so sadly that it's the first truly honest time he's ever said it without the threat of power, the subconscious finding its way into voice free of ego. Dana has little choice if she's in his life, but even in the back of his mind, Rufus knows that she can't stay there. It's a familial relationship fraught with a yearning to be loved despite all flaws, an unconditional arrangement of blood that crosses over a century to unite two people of different skin colors as one family line.
Family is what you make it, but sometimes, it's what you're born into.
Thoughts and Feelings on The Novel As It Were
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Catharsis Under White Fists
Bob finds himself at the
mercy of the police and his own self-realization of Jim Crow-era America,
shackled literally as the reader is relieved figuratively through this
catharsis. After being beaten and
arrested over his presumed rape of Madge, Bob must face a cadre of
unsympathetic guards with an unfortunate epiphany: “The whole structure of American thought was against me; American
tradition had convicted me a hundred years before” (187).
The structure of American thought at that time was flapping mad over Jim
Crow and not endeared to the Negro race, but more importantly, it’s against
Bob. He doesn’t frame it in terms of
social injustice, because those gatekeepers tell him to his black and blue body
that “in [the South, they’d] have hung
[him]” (186). They control the gate and
Bob’s fate at this point, and they sneer death in Bob’s face as personally as
they can; he doesn’t have a chance in the minds of these white people and
likely no others as well. A hundred
years before, his ancestors were freed to a nation that didn’t want them out of
chains, and now that Bob is back in them, he’s as good as a slave again. Such an example of that grand old American
tradition, Bob was guilty the minute he was born a Negro; there’s no defense
that’ll change his skin color or those of a thoughtful jury of “peers” who will
put him up on the stand and sell him off to the army, prison, or worse.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Little Voices in a Big Narrative
In a historical era where children could be used as
cheap labor, a novel like Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall illustrates the
humanity of the young ones through the expressive emotions of Katy and
Nettie. The lack of concern for the
children is evident in the dismissive manner in which, against Ruth’s
protestations, her father wants to send the two girls to the Halls. Mr. Ellet sees Ruth’s daughters as “a great
burden…[on her] hands”, one that he is wont to put on his own (68). This glib tone is mirrored in the Halls’ opinion
of their grandchildren, as the supposed conclusion of Dr. Hall that Katy and
Nettie do “not [have] much Hall blood in [them]” is reason enough to deserve
compensation for their son’s offspring.
Neither side of the parents is concerned with the useless assets of a
misbegotten arrangement.
Such blithe dismissal
is at odds with both Ruth Hall and Ruth Hall. Both Katy and Nettie are treated with a
respect of character in particular scenes highlighting their emotional
struggles during the trying times of both poverty and wealth. Katy’s fear of her grandfather Dr. Hall
carries on her face as “a troubled, anxious, care-worn look” in a paragraph cum
chapter that deals with the nature of Ruth’s troubles from the perspective of
her eldest living daughter (87). Just as
much as Katy’s worth is given a breadth of depth, so too does Nettie’s joy be
given a showcase for the peer infatuation of a schoolgirl crush through
rapturous proclamation: “I’m in love!”
(194). These incidents of childhood life
wrought better or worse by circumstances are still more supported by Ruth’s
care for her children, be it for the love Ruth displays in seeing Katy’s safe
return or the advice to her young Nettie that “she was glad little Neddy loved
[Nettie], and [Nettie] might love him just as much as ever [Nettie] liked”
(195). Such care to be given in
respecting a child’s love or safety is a task too daunting for the father and
the in-laws but quite probable for Ruth Hall.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Fannying the Flames: Furor Over Fern and Feminism From Before
My name
is Raheem Miah, and I'm a student at LaGuardia Community College. In my
class "The Novel", we are discussing Fanny Fern's novel Ruth Hall. This post
summarizes and discusses the essay "Anger
in the House: Fanny Fern's 'Ruth Hall' and the Redrawing of Emotional
Boundaries in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America" by Linda Grasso.
In the essay,
Grasso discusses Elizabeth Cady Stanton's praise of Ruth Hall for
demonstrating an obvious gall and righteous anger towards a male-dominated idea
of outspokenness. Stanton believed that the novel expertly defines the
injustice of private censure from men and speaks toward "woman's public
expression of anger [as] a strategic political tool" (Grasso 252).
Other women's rights activists like Paulina Wright Davis saw that dissent
from the patriarchy must be made with just indignation. However, this
anger was seen as impropriety and behavior unbecoming of a woman from men and
women alike, notably Caroline Dall in regards to Ruth Hall who felt that
Fern's use of "manly wit and the sarcasm of a soured soul" belies the
author to "a male-styled confrontational approach to sexual warfare"
(Dall, Grasso 256). Even Stanton's comparison of the novel to slave
narratives speaks beyond the white middle-class women who agree with Dall's and
the 19th-century's viewpoint of rational self-restraint. Grasso ends by
stating that the move away from Calvinist beliefs to more humanitarian
perspectives, Ruth Hall is
called into question as a loud cry for more bold action in achieving humanity
for all people.
A notable example of Ruth's anger
made apparent within the novel comes up in Chapter 73 whereupon Ruth leaves
"The Pilgrim" and faces the ire of the editor Mr. Tibbetts, incensed
that someone whose reputation was built by him would seek to leave his employ.
Ruth counters this sentiment by calling it "a question open to
debate" (Fern 156). When Tibbetts threatens to release her essays
himself before she can publish them, Ruth boldly states, "I am not to be
frightened, or threatened, or insulted..."
(Fern 157). Ruth Hall's demonstration of standing her ground exemplifies
Stanton's praise of the book's uncompromising gall at taking down a fascist
patriarchy. This chapter was not well-received, as Grasso explains: Mr.
Tibbetts was likely based on a real editor of Fern's, and he slandered her to
the public, "[identifying] Fanny Fern as Sarah Payson Willis", and
thus opening her to the public's censure (253). Moreover, the chapter
shows what was characterized as "unfemininely bitter wrath and spite"
when Tibbetts describes Ruth's promise of editors coming to her aid as "a manly act", so
unheard of it is for a woman to retaliate against a man (Grasso 253, Fern 157).
Ruth Hall does not herself express much anger or bitterness to men,
however, nor does the narrative in itself. It merely shows a reality of
discreet and indiscreet disrespect towards women portrayed with an honesty not
seen often in Fern's era. Still, Ruth on this occasion openly stands
against male tyranny and succeeds beyond her feminine limitations.
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