“Black Woman” by Georgia Douglas Johnson

A Mother is talking to the child she doesn’t have, but wishes she could. She is telling the child about the ugly world that is filled with cruel men and that is the reason she will not have this child.

Close Reading

1)    The title is interesting because it was originally titled “Motherhood” but then was changed to “Black Woman.” I would agree that the title should be Black Woman because it emphasizes the underlying meaning of the poem, racism. There are no clues in the poem that would lead us to believe the poem is about racism, so the title is it! I think once you read the poem, the title has a new meaning.

2)    For once, I actually understand all the words in a poem. This is extremely rare!

3)    Knock and not, In and Sin, You and Cruel, Bear and ear, Pain and Again, Earth and Birth.  Some of these sounds are rhyming, and some are more alliterative. I think the flow of the poem is smooth and the sounds help to emphasis emotion.

4)    A Black Mother is literally talking to a child that she is not going to have. There aren’t any other characters present that we know of. The poem doesn’t really give any hints as to where this is taking place. My perception of the action is changing and I’m starting to think that this woman might be having an abortion?

5)    A knock at the door, a cruel and sinful world, bear the pain, Monster men, precious child, birth. All of these images are working to create a picture in the reader’s mind that the mother is not to blame for whatever is happening; the cruel world is to blame.

6)    The speaker is a woman. She thinks the world is cruel. She does not want a child. She cannot bear the pain of ignoring her child. She is Black. She believes the world is full of monsters. She thinks if she gives birth, the child will live in a horrible world. Her heart can’t handle having a child. She thinks she will reunite with the child in eternity? The speaker is alone. (I hope I got that right.)

7)    (Cruelty, sin, still, eternity, heart, pain, monster, precious, men, birth.)

These are a few words that help set the poems tone. The speaker seems angry towards the ways of man and the world that she doesn’t want to bring a child into it. But I think this poem goes beyond racism. The tone is partly remorseful that she, the speaker, doesn’t want to be the child’s mother.

8)    The poem does follow a structure. There is internal rhyme and end rhyme. The poem has repetition of lines and sounds, which helps to emphasize the emotion.

9)    The tension is between the speaker and the unborn child, and also between the cruel world.

10) “I cannot let you in”

“I cannot bear the pain”

“be still, be still, my precious child”

When I first read this poem I simply imagined a Black woman talking sweetly to herself about why she doesn’t want to have a child. After a closer reading I got a completely different image. Possibly a Black woman, who is disgusted with racism, that she decides to have an abortion because she doesn’t want the child to suffer like her. I’m not sure if this is accurate, but I feel like there is something else going on this poem.

The Death Of Romanticism...

Alright folks, it is almost that time once again. You know where you start having more frequent panic attacks, eating leftover pizza for breakfast, and writing checks you HOPE will clear at Starbucks. Okay, forget that last part, who writes checks anymore? Cross your fingers and hope your approved.


What I'm trying to say is, well it is time for Midterms!


Ok, let's calm down and think, I'm sure we can come up with a strategy.


Why Am I talking to myself?






Here's what I'm thinking...


I'm going to take an idea that we brushed up against early in the semester which is the idea of the death of romanticism in America at the time and duration of the Civil War. Also, the beginning of a realistic approach in literature and art. 


Here's a possible thesis statement...


"The Civil War caused the inevitable death of romanticism in America, and shifted the country towards realism." 


What do you think? Can I prove this?


I would use the following texts:


1) Bierce's Chickamauga, to show how the stark reality of war contributed to the aging of youth.
2) Twain's A Private History, to show how the Civil War became a traumatic event in the consciousness of America, crippling the will to fantasize. 
3) Dickinson's poems, 448 and 479, to show her portrayal of death as a reality the people faced in the shadow of the war.




Is this feasible?


If this doesn't sound good, I will just go with topic #5 about the role of death within multiple texts.


Yah, how does this sound?

Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. du bois...

            After reading both “sides” if you will, I would consider Booker T. Washington to be on the conservative side and Du Bois to be on the liberal or “militant” side. There is definitely a difference in tone in these essays, but I’m hesitant to classify Du Bois as militant.

            I find it coincidental, that the more conservative of the two, was in fact born into slavery. I would have expected Washington to be more radical and more of a die hard against the South. 

Was there a method to his madness? 

Is this a classic “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” scenario?

I can’t help but wonder if Booker T. was torn between his mixed racial heritages?  Did he view himself as a middleman between Blacks and Whites?

            In his closing statement at the Atlanta Exposition:

“ …let us pray God, will come in a blotting out of sectional differences and racial animosities and suspicions, in a determination to administer in a nation absolute justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of law. This, this, couples with our material prosperity, will bring into our beloved South a new heaven and a new earth.”

                                                                 -Booker T. Washington

I think we get a true sense of who Booker T. Washington was as a person, in these closing words. He may have been conservative and overly reserved in the advancement of equal rights, but I believe he was cautious for a reason. Considering that he came from slavery and lived through the Civil War, he had seen so much hatred. He wanted to make a difference, and he did.

W.E.B du bois was an extremely powerful figure and leader for the African American race, and rightfully opposed to Washington’s views. Even though he was born after Emancipation, he saw at a young age the ugliness of racism that existed between races. Unlike Washington, he thought the way to equality was to stand up and fight for it.

From, The Souls of Black Folk,

“ …Negroes must insist continually, in season and out of season, that voting is necessary to modern manhood, that color discrimination is barbarism, and that black boys need education as well as white boys.”

            -W.E.B. du bois

This was partly a rebuttal to Washington’s approach of backing down and slowly earning a wage. Du bois advocated an equal playing field now, not tomorrow.

 

I found myself agreeing more with du bois for many personal reasons and I still consider him one of the top three most influential figures on civil rights. I also found it interesting that regardless of his “radical” views, he was the first African American to earn a PhD from Harvard. His legacy is huge.

Oh..Now I totally get it!

Irony, sarcasm's tricky sister.....


I really had a hard time finding the verbal irony in The Passing of Grandison, but after last Friday and reading Kailie's blog, I totally get it, I think.


She really had some great examples for irony that I didn't catch:


""Upon hearing that Grandison is very happy being a slave and has no intention of leaving, the colonel beams and think to himself regarding the abolitionist, "What cold-blooded heartless monsters they were who would break up this blissful relationship of kindly protection on the one hand, of wise subordination and loyal dependence on the other!""


Hahaha, Silly Abolitionists and their trying to help slaves, what were they thinking?


I think the trick to finding verbal irony when one is reading is to really understand the tone of the author. I have a habit of taking everything I read for serious. Which is funny, because I'm an extremely sarcastic person. 


When I was reading Grandison, I was trying to figure out who the characters really were and what was really taking place. I wasn't exactly clued in on the irony until the end of the story. Which proves to be extremely ironic.


I'm not exactly sure of the difference between irony and sarcasm, because they seem to be from the same blood. Is there a difference? 


I found plenty of sarcastic remarks throughout the story, but I guess they could be considered irony, in retrospect. 

Stephen Crane Needs A Hug....

Remind me NOT to take my book of Stephen Crane poems on my next picnic....


Crane seemed to me to have a stark, depressing outlook in the majority of his poems. (by majority, I mean all of them.)




Here are a few poems I wrote in the style of Crane. 
One of them is a parody, guess which one...


#1
Alone in this darkness
I asked myself the meaning
of this life?
And I answered with
no regret, for my 
heart was empty.


#2
I followed a road to no where, and
saw a man, shirtless and begging,
"should I stop?"
The man was smiling, content
What a fool.




#3
Ghostly figures arose in shadow
There was hollow and hollow of heart and soul,
and sigh and sigh of pain and tremble,
vigorous pleas and loss of desire,
In the hour before the light,
he took back the night.


#4
A man said to his shrink,
"Sir, am I crazy?"
"Truthfully?" replied the shrink.
"Don't answer that!
My times up."

The Irony of Grandison

I truly am having a Reality Bites moment this week because all I can think is “That’s Ironic.” I’ve read and re-read The Passing of Grandison, and I’m at a loss for the Irony.

Let me see if I can come close:

Example 1: Page 230 – “ He was a youth about 22, intelligent, handsome and amiable, but extremely indolent, in a graceful and gentlemanly way;”

This could be taken for verbal irony because in fact the speaker actually intends the character to be lazy.

Example 2: page 235 – “ You may take Grandison, said the Colonel to his son. “I allow he’s abolitionist proof.”

This could be seen as situational irony because in fact Grandison is not abolitionist proof.

 

Example 3: Page 240 – “ Oh Dick,” she had said with shuddering alarm, “What have you done? If they knew it they’d send you to the penitentiary, like they did that Yankee.”

Here, Charity Lomax is upset that Dick Owens hypothetically freed a slave. This irony is situational because the expected outcome was that she would be happy and impressed by his accomplishment. After all it is stated in the beginning that there is nothing Dick Owens won’t do to “please a woman. (230)”

As for verbal irony, I’m having a rough time. Overall, I found the story entirely ironic because Dick Owens tried so hard to free Grandison and he appeared to be a faithful slave. It was not until the final paragraphs that we learn Grandison wasn’t content being a slave like the Colonel led us all to believe, and the joke was on him.

Maybe…. The title is verbal irony because Grandison doesn’t “Pass,” he Lives. Symbolically, the old Grandison dies and the new one gets to live freely amongst his family.

Any thoughts? 

Three Cheers For Compassion...

         

          Another week behind us and three classic stories burned into our memories forever, which is a good thing. I was just reading our class's blogs and trying to connect the dots, between the three stories that is. What could two grotesgue Civil War stories and an erotic love triangle all have in common?
                              Compassion!

Both of my fellow bloggers agree in one way, shape, or form... Take A Look...

Kailie thought The Storm was :
                 "(A) super sexy story and by far my favorite thing I read this semester."


And Dennis had this to say about Chickamauga and A Private History...

"The first thing that stood out to me that was very similar in the story was that the stories started out with the same innocence of the main character (s) in the story. "




Def'n:
Compassion - Sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. (Source- Macbook Dictionary)


In The Storm, it was easy to feel compassion for all characters because we are human and try to see all angles of a complex situation (hopefully). After our class discussion I felt I had a better understanding of the story, and could feel myself identifyng with Calixta. 


And with both Civil War stories, I felt as if I was fighting on the North and South, and no matter how you look at it, it's a double-sided knife. 


This is Literature.


No, not this blog.




These Stories, 


they take few minutes to read, 


but change the way we think, 


maybe forever.