Imagery in A View Of The Woods

“The old man looked up into his own image. It was triumphant and hostile. “You been whipped,” it said, “by me” and then it added, bearing down on each word, “and I’m PURE Pitts.” (545)

Filling this story with vivid imagery, O’Connor allows us to envision each event in our mind as if we were a part of it.  From the very beginning, we are told of Mr. Fortune’s “battered mulberry-colored Cadillac, the red corrugated lake, and the black line of woods which appeared at both ends of the view to walk across the water and continue along the edge of the fields.” (525). But perhaps the most important sight in this story is how Mr. Fortune views his granddaughter, Mary Fortune. Despite the seventy years that separates them in age, Mr. Fortune is convinced that Mary is his splitting image both inside and out and most importantly to him, he believes they are similar in the way they think. “He had seen that even at the age of one day she bore his unmistakable likeness.” (527).

As Mary begins to turn against her grandfather, we can also see that the imagery in the story begins to turn darker. Mr. Fortune began to have hallucinations of someone being wounded behind the woods and the trees were bathing in blood.  He awoke to an empty room, one that was unfamiliar to him because Mary had always been there to great him in the morning, perhaps symbolizing that as his granddaughter started to drift away from his life, he himself became empty and had nothing else to live for. Before the brawl between the two, we are brought into a scene that is threatened with a storm brewing, helping set the mood for something gloomy to follow.

I felt that the quote I provided was the most important image in O’Connor’s work. I feel that he was looking into a mirror image, needing to beat out the Pitts that had entered his body and go back to seeing the world the "Fortune way". He had allowed his own greed to somehow get the best of him.  By using the word "it" when he sees Mary over him, we can tell that he is no longer looking into the eyes of the granddaughter that he has loved since day one, but instead I believe that he sees a problem within himself that he must fix, sacrificing his granddaughter for his own greed and pride.


Discussion Question: How does Mr. Fortune resemble Mr. Pitts throughout the story? Is imagery truly effective in helping reflect the twists and turns as they happen?

A View of the Woods

"No one was particularly glad that Mary Fortune looked like her grandfather except for the old man himself. He thought it added greatly to her attractiveness. He thought she was the smartest and prettiest child he had ever seen and he let the rest of them known that if, IF that was, he left anything to anybody, it would be Mary Fortune he left it to" (O'Connor 526).

At the beginning of the story the likeness between Mr. Fortune and Mary Fortune is pointed out several times. Mr. Fortune allows the Pitts to couple his name with her's because he see's his features in her the day she was born. He plans to leave her everything because he is sure that she is the only one like him feature wise and has more intelligence than the others so she can control them. He has so much trust in the little girl.

As a reader though I didn't trust Mary Fortune. She's stubborn and secretive, telling Mr. Fortune 'don't be buttin into my business' when supposedly she is closest to him. Her actions and the way Mr. Fortune described her never added up, so when she goes a bit psycho it did not surprise me. Yet, it surprised Mr. Fortune.

So, my question is: Why did Fortune put such blinding faith in a child because she looked like him? What does this say about the physical connection between people?  

A View Of The Woods

Mary Fortune is the bastard child of two polar and competing drives: the desire for material progress and modernization and the tendency to stagnate in tradition and principle. Mary Fortune mediates these two drives; she is neither all Fortune or all Pitts, although old man Fortune "liked to think of her as being thoroughly of his clay (528)."Fortune refuses to acknowledge the impurity of influence which has come to shape Mary Fortune's own belief system; he sees in her only a semblance of himself, and thus denies her complexity.

Fortune sees the no inherent value in the world and its inhabitants; he assigns value to objects or persons according to their potential utility: "He didn't have any use for her mother, his third or fourth daughter (he could never remember which), though she considered that she took care of him (526)."Mary Fortune "was the only member of the family he had any respect for (526)"; this is only because he sees in her a tool for his own use: he has fashioned out of Mary Fortune his own legacy. He is protective of her because he sees her as the only guarantor of progress upon whom he can rely:"'I said don't walk so close to the edge,' he called; 'you fall off there and you won't live to see the day this place gets built up (529).'"

Old man Fortune scoffs his son-in-law Pitts' willingness to "let a cow pasture or a mule lot or a row of beans interfere with progress (528)." Fortune values innovation and progress: "He was not one of these old people who fight improvement [...] He wanted to see a paved highway in front of his house with plenty of new-model cars on it (527)." He assumes that Mary Fortune's fascination with the machines milling about the Fortune property denotes a similar dedication to material progress to which he himself is affixed; he projects his own ideology upon Mary Fortune: "The people like you and me with their heads on their shoulders can't stop the marcher time for a cow (528)." When he decides to sell "the lawn," however, he is confronted with Pitts' undeniable influence on Mary Fortune when she is not as delighted by the potential for progress as he had expected. Mary Fortune is now, like the rest of the Pitts, a barrier to Fortune progress; she wishes to maintain "the lawn" for the sake of having a place to play, being able to see the woods across the road, and having a spot for Pitts' cattle to graze, reasons inconceivable to old man Fortune as he sees no inherent value in them. When he looks at the woods, he sees just that, "not a mountain, not a waterfall, not any kind of planted bush or flower, just woods (538)."

Old man Fortune is jolted from complacency as he confronts the perversion of his only potential legacy; he awakes one morning to discover that she has come to "[prefer] the sight of the woods (539)" to him. He flails to regain her loyalty, but every offer he puts forth is refused: "'I ain't got nothing to do in no ten-cent store,' she said. 'I don't want no quarter of yours (540).'" He has lost all power to influence Mary Fortune with the sway of material goods and thus lost the ability to control his legacy; disempowered and enraged, he destroys he own desecrated image.

Religious Overtones in A View of the Woods

"Tilman was a man of quick action and few words. He sat habitually with his arms folded on the counter and his insignificant head weaving snake-fashion above them. He had a triangular-shaped face with the point at the bottom and the top of his skull was covered with a cap of freckles. His eyes were green and very narrow and his tongue was always exposed in his partly opened mouth. He had his checkbook handy and they got down to business at once. It did not take him long to look at the deed and sign the bill of sale. Then Mr. Fortune signed it and they grasped hands over the counter.

Mr. Fortune's sense of relief as he grasped Tilman's hand was extreme. What was done, he felt, was done and there could be no more argument, with her or with himself. He felt that he had acted on principle and that the future was assured." (O'Connor 542)

Flannery O'Connor's short stories frequently employ the use of religious imagery, specifically Judeo-Christian, to help convey her messages. Here, O'Connor describes the conniving Tilman as a character so blatantly snake-like that it seems comical that any character would trust him in a high level business transaction. The arrangement between Mr. Fortune and Tilman clearly invokes imagery of the Fall of Man. Mr. Fortune's willingly arrogant sale of the Pitts' grazing land visibly parallels the transaction between the Serpent and Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. As Mr. Fortune signs over the land, O'Connor curiously includes the line, "He felt that he had acted on principle and that the future was assured" (542). By including the word 'felt,' O'Connor seems to editorialize the description of the deal by subtly implying that Mr. Fortunes future is heading towards its tragic end. But the story is not wholly synchronous with the story of the Fall. This brief passage serves to highlight the seemingly irredeemable actions of Mr. Fortune in light of the Pitts' plight. O'Connor equates Mr. Fortune's actions with the most profound wrongness she can invoke through her Christian faith. This damning comparison casts Mr. Fortune's decisions in a completely scathing light and begs the question of whether or not his actions are redeemable.

Discussion Question: O'Connor often struggles with themes of redemption, in light of her comparison in this passage and his tragic end, does O'Connor's worldview allow for a person like Mr. Fortune to be redeemed?

Displaced Person

"Christ was just another D.P." 89

I really enjoyed O'Connor's writing style. The topics are heavy, but she sprinkles in moments of dark humor. Anyway I guess it was just my turn to do some gushing. Religious symbolism plays an important role in O'Connor's story, this is apparent from the first sentence. The peacock that follows Mrs. Shortley around at the beginning seems to represent religion. Throughout the story the only two characters who care or respect the Peacock are Astor and the Priest. While Mrs. McIntyre simply lets the peacocks starve and die out. The peacock helps illuminate the conflict or alliance these characters have with religion and the church.

 Another interesting religious symbol can be found in the "displaced person." When Mr. Guizac first begins his work on the farm Mrs. McIntyre exclaims that he is her savior! He seems to be a Christ-like symbol, working without complaint, and harming no one. Even when Mrs. McIntyre wishes to fire Mr. Guizac she tells the priest that Christ was a D.P. as well. Thinking of Christ as a displaced person allows him to bridge racial borders, because at some point in the story all of the characters are displaced people.
What religious symbols stuck out to you? And how do you think they shaped the story?

Immigrant Labor And The Southern Economy

"All you colored people better look out," She said. "You know how much you can get for a mule."
"Nothing, no indeed," the old man said, "not one thing."
"Before it was a tractor, she said, "it could be a mule. And before it was a Displaced Person, it could be a nigger."
The old man laughed politely. "Yes indeed," he said. "Ha ha."

The Displaced Person describes the advent of a third contender in the power struggle between blacks and poor whites in the labor market of the American South. The Southern labor market had been, up until this point, comprised of blacks and poor whites. The Southern economy could even be said to have been stagnated by the tension between these two parties: poor whites assumed an intrinsic racial advantage over blacks which would guarantee them their presumed position on the social hierarchy, while blacks relied on their reputation as cheap, hard workers to maintain their own position. The inception of a zealous and skillful European workforce in the wake of World War II offered, on the one hand, a chance for innovation and progress, and, on the other hand, threatened to displace both parties which constituted the Southern labor market.

When the hard-working Guizac family first arrives on the McIntyre farm, Mrs. Shortley, one such poor, white farm laborer, posits in the above passage that the "colored people," Astor and Sulk,will be the first to go. She ignores her own vulnerability to competition, assuming the precedence of a non-existant intra-racial loyalty over modern business rationality. She cannot possibly imagine that she belongs in the group of "sorry people," "poor white trash," that she overhears Mrs. McIntyre talking about: "Mrs. Shortley could listen to this with composure because she knew that if Mrs. McIntyre had considered her trash, they couldn't have talked about trashy people together" (293). Astor, however, is wise to the workings of a competitive workforce dominated by principles of cost efficiency; his simple, scathing reply to Mrs. Shortley implies a knowledge of what is to come, that is, that the Shortleys will be the first to go. I think that Astor's predictions are informed by his knowledge of how the struggle between blacks and poor white southerners came to be; this was not the first time poor white southerners would be displaced by a new, competitive labor market. There is indeed a "displaced person" in the struggle, and it is not the Guizacs.

Why does Mrs. McIntyre eventually reverse her decision of ousting the Shortleys in favor of the Guizacs? Is she too somehow threatened by the influx of immigrant labor?

The Race Bird...?

"The peacock stopped just behind her, his tail-glittering green-gold and blue in the sunlight-lifted just enough so that it would not touch the ground." (285)

To me, the peacock is the most striking symbol in Flannery O'Connor's "The Displaced Person."  The setting of this story is filled to the brim with racism, and here is a bird that symbolizes the racial environment of this story.

The peacock is a magnificent, beautiful bird consisting of many different colors fitting together in perfect harmony.  The 'harmonious existence of these colors on the feathers of this bird strongly contrastts with the existence of the many different races in the Southern locale of this story.  Mrs. Shortley shows animosity toward the new Polish help, her husband eventually harbors the same hatred, and Mrs. McIntyre shows hatred towards all of these different races.  There seems to be no mercy from any side in this environment.

According to Mrs. McIntyre, peacocks used to be prosperous on her property, but she let them die out and now there is only one left.  This state of peacock existence on this property represents the state of race relations in the South.  All the peacocks meant all of these different colors running around, sticking together.  Now, however, there is only one left.  Racial harmony is a thing of the past, and it may soon become nonexistent whatsoever.  This peacock represents a society on the verge of total race relation chaos. Throughout the story, it stays to the side of all the action, frequently mentioned in passing. But, at the end, when Flannery O'Connor delivers her usual devastating, dark ending and Mr. Guitar dies, and everything descends into chaos, the peacock is not mentioned again. In readers' minds, it is dead. So, too, have race relations become totally hostile at the end of this story, that any illusion of harmony has completely disappeared.

Discussion question: Do you believe that race relations could ever recover in such a hostile place? Clearly, this story is fiction and things have progressed in the real world. But in this fictional world, created by Flannery O'Connor, do you believe that the tensions present could ever subside?

"'She in camp three year,' he said.
'Your cousin,' she said in a positive voice, 'cannot come out here and marry one of my Negroes'" (314)

The story is rife with racism directed at nearly every character by Mrs. McIntyre. This moment struck me as interesting because it presented a predicament that I assume very few people in the south had to deal with. Reading literature of the American South, I've become used to the dividing line between blacks and whites and this sentence made me sit up and take notice but it also got me thinking.

What does this moment truly say about the racist attitudes of the characters? More importantly, what does it say about the moral attitudes of the characters? Mrs. McIntyre is not ignorant of the situation in Europe and the existence of concentration camps. If Mrs. Shortley was aware of them, it can be safely assumed that Mrs. McIntyre did as well. While it may be understandable that she rejected the notion of an interracial marriage, given the time period, the thing that struck me was that it didn't seem to really bother her that someone's life was on the line and this made me dislike her. Despite knowing his situation, she never fully accepts him either - always referring to him as the 'Displaced Person' or 'DP'.
 What also surprised me, later on, was the attitude of Astor towards the Guizacs. As a person who, presumably, had to deal with intolerance and oppression his entire life, Astor seems remarkably callous towards the Guizacs. We later find out that it's because he makes them work too hard, but I would have expected Astor to empathise with Mr. Guizac.

Question: why do you think Astor played such a role in getting rid of the Guizacs? What does this say about attitudes towards racism?

sad love

"There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries. Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored-up love which has lain quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto... Almost everyone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being loved is intolerable to many." (25-26)

I enjoyed the fact that McCullers is convinced that romantic relationships are split between the lover and the beloved. When applied to the average relationship this appears to be a plausible assumption. Anyone who has been in a committed relationship knows that relationships are always growing and changing. The amount of affection each person in the relationship shares is not always equal. McCullers apparently felt that this was always the case and she crafted her characters to fit within these parameters. The three main characters are locked in a struggle to determine who will be loved by who and over the course of the story all of them switch roles from lover to beloved or viceverse. Doesn't this feel a bit jaded? I enjoyed the plot that derived from this idea of the lover versus the beloved but in the end, it seems that there isn't room for lasting happiness in a world of changing affections, bound by this dychotomy of love.

Questions: Can this idea be stretched to encompass the townsfolk and the Sad cafe? Is there any hope for lasting love according to McCullers' idea? 

Gender Reversal

"There was not a grain of modesty about Miss Amelia, and she frequently seemed t to forget altogether that there men in the room. Noe as she stood warming herself, her red dress was pulled up quite high in the back so that a piece of her strong, hairy thigh could be seen by anyone who cared to  look at it." (59)

The Gender reversals in this text were so striking that I decided they must have some importance. Mrs. Amelia is portrayed as very masculine. She is over 6 feet tall, has strong hairy legs, smokes pipes regularly, and finds it entertaining to feel her own biceps! On the flip side Cousin Lymon is sickly, small, gossipy, and clearly portrayed as feminine. Marvin Macy is caught somewhere in the middle. He is not overtly feminine, but certain actions he takes could lead us to see a slight reversal. For instance, signing over all of his possessions to Miss Amelia can be seen as a dowry of sorts. This gender reversal also plays into the love triangle these characters are caught in. It almost seems that even strong "male-like" characters are shown as weaker, or more womanlike when in love. The above example of Marvin Macy is one such case. Miss Amelia's character also experiences change when she is in love with Cousin Lymon. Before Lymon abandoned Miss Amelia, she has always taken firm courses of actions. However, for the first time she is pursuing multiple courses of action. She allows Marvin into the house after she has sworn not to. Also Amelia begins wearing more feminine clothes when Lymon abandons her. What do you think the importance of these gender reversals are? And what do they say about the message of the story?

Miss Amelia

"Miss Amelia let her hair grow ragged, and it was turning gray. Her face lengthened, and the great muscles of her body shrank until she was thin as old maids are thin when they go crazy. And those gray eyes -- slowly day by day they were more crossed, and it was as though they sought each other out to exchange a little glance of grief and lonely recognition. She was not pleasant to listen to; her tongue had sharpened terribly....Miss Amelia hired a Cheehaw carpenter and had him board up the premises, and there in those closed rooms she has remained ever since." (Last page)

In the course of the story, we come to find that Miss Amelia is a established and flourishing store-owner, businesswoman, carpenter, doctor, whiskey brewer, restaurant owner, cook, boxer, wrestler and cotton grower. By any time period's standards her success and abilities are outstanding for either male or female, almost super-human (trying new remedies on oneself while figuring out which organ is being affected, for example). My questions repeatedly throughout the story were: How strange is the character of Miss Amelia to the reading audience of the time it was written? Did women with this sort of power really exist in this time period, given the social restraints? Was she a 6 foot 2 super-hero?

I chose the end of the piece because, given her incredible attributes, she is still conquered in the end. It can be easily argued she is the backbone and life of the entire town through her cafe, but she is still left shacked up alone. She treats the hunchback with nothing but pure kindness, and yet he burns everything of hers he can. Does Miss Amelia's defeat imply women like her, in her time period, cannot make it through life without being "cross-eyed" somehow?

Hunter

Rumor has it..

"Now this was the day that the rumor started- the rumor so terrible that the town and all the country about were stunned by it. The rumor was started by a weaver called Merlie Ryan" (Carson, 13)

Like Faulkner's A Rose for Emily a good portion of A Ballad of the Sad Cafe is told from the perspective of the townspeople. Most of this information is gathered from events that the townspeople have witnessed, but other information is fabricated with in their minds and then spread to be the truth. The particular rumor mentioned above is immediately proven false by the narrator informing the audience that the story was spread by Merlie Ryan who has "the three day-malaria" and started the rumor in his fever. However, like all decent rumors it caught like wildfire and brought the town to action against Miss Amelia.

Rumors can be a powerful tool in a narrative. They can help progress the plot by brining about action and they cause curiosity and raise doubt within the audience. Yet, unlike Faulkner's tale, Carson gives the audience a glimpse into the main characters life. She explains Miss Amelia's character and her actions in detail though his/her own words, not the townspeople. Thus, taking away the effect the rumors could have had on the audience.


Question:
So, What role do rumors play in the story? What role do the townspeople play in this story?

The Sad Café and The South

      "When a person is as contrary in every single respect as she was and when the sins of a person have amounted to such a point that they can hardly be remembered all at once- then this person plainly requires a special judgment (14)."


      I feel the need to take a moment in this post to gush about how much I loved the narration of this story; a mix of poetry and understated prose reminiscent of my grandparents. Having only recently begun identifying myself as a Southerner, Carson McCullers's descriptions of nature and the lives of Southerners long gone incite in me a strange feeling of being at home, or perhaps homesick for something I do not understand.
     That being said, I am perplexed by Amelia. She is defiant both of the expectations for her sex at the time and the social niceties observed by most Southerners during the era, however the people of the town seem to treat her with respect and, especially after she opens the café, a certain fondness. Much of the townspeople's sympathy for Amelia stems from their awareness that she was raised solely by her father and had been strange to begin with. They use the same logic in their treatment of Marvin Macy, reasoning that his abusive parents had caused his evil nature and, as the quote above suggests, nothing could be done about him and therefore he would have to be judged differently than everyone else. Cousin Lymon and his hunchback, strange habits and tendency to illicit arguments between friends are also accepted on the basis of his strangeness. I find it ironic that Amelia and Cousin Lymon are responsible for starting the café, where politeness, pleasantry and fellowship are unsaid rules, however they and Marvin Macy alone are allowed to turn the café into a place of tension, mischief and even a wrestling ring. It is as if the culture of the town is both defined by and eventually destroyed by these three enigmatic figures. I am probably making a far too general statement here, but a similar assessment could be made about the South as a whole. The troubles and peculiarities of the South are what define its character and make the ideal of Southern hospitality more emphatic, or perhaps at times more ironic. 


Discussion question: Why does Amelia develop a fondness for Cousin Lymon and allow him to live with her? Furthermore, why does she give him everything she worked so hard to gain and ultimately allow him to destroy her?




 

Bonner "Flying Home"

"What does she know of humiliation? She's never been down South. Now the humiliation would come. When you must have them judge you, knowing that they never accept your mistakes as your own, but hold it against your whole race-that was humiliation." Pg. 208

I found this image from Ellison's story to be particularly striking. Here we are given Todd's thoughts in a frantic blast, as he relates a letter from his girl to his present state of humiliation. I found it interesting that Todd is concerned about how his actions will echo beyond his own life and shadow all other members of his race and that he will be chastised by both white and black people for his failure and wake of negativity. This seems to be a statement about the world in which these characters reside.When Todd thinks of being judged, he considers how the entire society both black and white will view his actions, even though it is easy to assume that his judges will be white military officers. But because the white society around him craves negative reinforcement to justify its violence and anger, and he is a member of the Air focre, (on the front lines of racial tension) his actions will radiate away from him, supplying more wood for the furnace of prejudice. I found it interesting that Ellison chose this to be Todd's first fear after the faulty landing. His fears gradually increase as he learns more about the property on which he has crashed and he bigins worrying about his own personal safety. Yet his initial fear is one of complete humiliation and resentment.
Question: What is Ellison saying about the South here and why did he include the letter from Todd's girl?  

"They Bad Luck all right. Teddy's got  name for 'em, calls 'em jimcrows," the old man laughed.
"It's a damned good name."
"They are the damnedest birds. Once I seen a hoss all strtched out like he was sick, you know.So i hollers, 'Gid up from there, suh!' Just to make sho! An doggone, son, if i don't see two ole jimcrows come flying right up outaa that hoss's insides! Yessuh! The sun was shinin' on 'em and they couldn't a been no greasier if they'd been eating barbecue."

Two recurring images in "Flying Home" are that of a buzzard and of a horse. The horse is first mentioned in a letter from Todd's girlfriend, describing the way "they," which we can assume to mean those whites "in charge" of drafting pilots to fight, continue to "beat that dead horse because they don't want to say why you boys are not yet fighting." Todd's girlfriend is talking about the way white air force officials (?) continue to cite ("beat that dead horse") black pilots' lack of bravery or skill when denying them their qualifying "papers," even though this excuse is clearly a guise for their unjustifiable racial prejudice against black pilots because of their supposed inferiority to white pilots. We see the horse image again in Jefferson's anecdote quoted above; this time the significance of the horse is revealed in its entirety to us by its relationship to the buzzard. For Jefferson and Teddy, the buzzard is directly implied to be of racial significance; Teddy has nicknamed the birds "jimcrows," after the laws put in place during reconstruction to assure the continued privilege of whites over blacks. The buzzards, symbols of white oppression, are said to be "after dead things"(212) like the horse, which symbolizes the supposed inferiority of blacks to whites. Just as a buzzard would die in the lack of dead things to eat, so too would the instruments of white oppression be rendered useless without the pretense of black inferiority.

The struggle of our protagonist is mirrored in this image of a buzzard feeding on a dead horse. Todd recognizes this need to overcome the notion of black inferiority, to debase the very notion on which his oppressors feed; he attempts to do this by becoming a skilled pilot. Even so, as we have seen in the letter from his girlfriend, he is denied the papers needed to bring his skills to fruition. For Todd, the admiration of "ignorant black men" is not enough; his success as a pilot lay in navigating "the cloudy terrain of white men's regard" to attain the approval of his "white officers" (209). Only when "the enemy" could come to recognize his skill "would he assume his deepest meaning" (210), having overturned the assumed order of  the racial hierarchy and cutting off the nourishing supply of presumed superiority which has fed white supremacy for so long.

Lauren Gore

Discussion: What else could the horse signify? What about the buzzard?

Crash

"They bad luck all right.  Teddy's got a name for 'em, calls 'em jimcrows," the old man laughed. (212-213)

Usually, I do not like blatant, obvious, in-your-face symbolism in stories.  I think it's a sign of laziness on the part of the writer, who does not feel like working to get his message across.  But the way in which this one line of symbolism is worked in, and how it fits in with the rest of the events that have happened, is really striking.

Throughout this story, Todd is a negative person.  He does not feel compassion towards anyone, neither white nor black.  He looks upon white people as oppressive, and African Americans as ignorant.  He views himself as above them, intellectually and spiritually.  That is why I believe that he so desperately wished to fly: so that he could "soar" above all of these people whom he looked down upon.  However, he is woken up out of his fantasy by a buzzard, referred to as a "jimcrow."

Now, although he was ssimply scared by a buzzard, it is what the buzzard symbolizes that really matters: white oppression.  In his desperation to escape from solid ground, he forgot who his brethren really were.  His elitist attitude towards the black community blinded his eyes toward what was really going on, but in the end, he is brought down by a "jimcrow," a.k.a. Jim Crow.  This leads to the moment in his life where his eyes are opened, and he realizes that Jefferson and Teddy, two people who were worthless to him, are actually his brothers.  From this moment onward in his life, he will be a different person.  Part of a community, something to which he has never belonged to before.

Discussion question: How would Todd have gone through life had he not been in this plane crash?  What do you think led him to have such contempt for African Americans, even though he is one?

"Todd shook as with a chill, searching Jefferson’s face for a trace of the mockery he had seen there. But now the face was somber and tired and old. He was confused. He could not be sure that there had ever been laughter there, that Jefferson had ever really laughed in his whole life. He saw Jefferson reach out to touch him and shrank away, wondering if anything except the pain, now causing his vision to waver, was real. Perhaps he had imagined it all." (Ellison 218)

After Todd's jarring, impassioned response to Jefferson's story, Todd finds himself struggling to understand whether Jefferson had intended to mock him at all. The seemingly innocent and oblivious nature of Jefferson's story is disarming to Todd , who is driven to a fever pitch by his assumption that Jefferson is not taking his situation seriously. Todd is acutely aware of the danger surrounding him after having crashed in the hostile South. He thinks in literal, pragmatic terms while Jefferson tells bizarre parables that Todd simply believes to be unenlightened nonsense. Jefferson copes with his identity as a black Southerner through his stories while Todd writhes in discomfort at the uncertainty and frustrations facing his more straightforward method of forming his identity. He is enraged that Jefferson does not understand the gravity of his plight as a black man in the South, but this is not the case. Jefferson's identity in the South is developed in a profoundly different way than Todd's and it allows him to somehow transcend the immense difficulties he faces living there.

Discussion Question: How does Todd's understanding of his identity allow him to transcend the worries and anxiety that Todd displays?

"He watched the old man, hearing him humming snatches of a tune as he admired the plane. He felt a furtive sense of resentment. Such old men often came to the field to watch the pilots with childish eyes. At first it made him proud; they had been a meaningful part of a new experience. But soon he realized they did not understand his accomplishments and they came to shame and embarrass him, like the distasteful praise of an idiot." (Elisson 209)

As time has passed, Todd seems to want more acknowledgement for his achievements. He isn't fully appreciated by his white officers or by the child-like onlookers, like Jefferson. He was once one of the onlookers who gazed at the planes flying by, but unlike others, he was able to become a pilot. Todd feels embarrassed, he knows they don't admire him for the time and effort it has taken him to get there, but simply because it is something nice to look up at. He feels shamed that they are content with their life and he, the pilot who has gone out to better himself, is still considered to be their equal. He is so aware of his own community, the divisions and diversities found within them, that it angers him to know he can't do anything about it. Todd has realizes that regardless of his social status and achievements he will never be able to escape the struggles that oppress him.

Discussion question: Is Jefferson aware of Todd's strong feelings of shame and embarrassment? Has Todd acquired this perception of racial roles because he has become a pilot?

Back to the Beginning

"What does she know of humiliation? She's never been down South. Now the humiliation would come. When you must have them judge you, knowing that they never accept your mistakes as your own, but hold it against your whole race--that was humiliation. Yes, and humiliation was when you could never simply be yourself, when you were always a part of this old black ignorant man."

(Ellison 208)

Todd portrays a subtext of racial bias and status within the African American culture. The South proves to be a crude society where African Americans are looked down upon, even during war time. American society has a derogatory stereotype of all African Americans, forcing all of their culture to abide by these downcast opinions and reservations.  The idea of social mobility is so limited for the Black community, that the only way Todd finds a solution for such is by adhering to white society's values and vocations deemed acceptable. There seems to be an enormous social pressure for all African Americans to alienate themselves from their culture and heritage, to accustom themselves to standards of prejudice society. Hence, Todd becomes a pilot, separating himself from the rest of his kind. Ironically, the title for the short story is "Flying Home," bringing the story to a reality that even in such rough condition, even as a pilot, even as a respectable individual of society, Todd is still chastised and seen as an inferior, treated like trash that needs to be removed from Mr. Grave's property. Even in his critical condition, he looks in disgust at Jefferson, treating him with the same contempt and disapproval whites have for him. In the eyes of Todd, Jefferson is in every way and form the reason why his race has not progressed or moved towards a higher status in society. Jefferson is a negative stereotype found within the African American people, a stain that cannot be washed away from the reputation of colored people. The story implies a divide within the state of African Americans, from those who try to move up the societal ladder and those who fall back into old habit. 

Discussion Question: How does Todd's perception of race roles and hierarchy within the African American culture affect the overall message of the story?

Hopeful Children

"Any black man who can read a book are the gateway to a forbidden world. And we are joyful when we hear a black man speak like a book. The people who say how the world is to be run, who have fires in winter, who wear warm clothes, who get enough to eat, are the people who make books speak to them. SOmetimes of a night we tell our children to get out the old big family Bible and read to us, and we listen wonderingly until, tired from a long day in the fields, we fall asleep" (Wright, 65).

"The land we till is beautiful, with red and black and brown clay, with fresh and hungry smells, with pine trees and palm trees" (32)

12 Million Black Voices

"We want what others have, the right to share in the upward march of the Amerian life, the only life we remember or have ever known." 146

Laura & Alex

James and Ayesha - Quote from Pg 38

In the introduction one of the essayists makes comment on how in the present day blacks have stretched as far as positions of power in American society, but, in Wright's commentary, he repeatedly remarks that blacks, despite the better positions they were able to hold such as the one pictured here, still lacked any real power or position in society. Ayesha found a quote which encompasses this idea: "The economic and political power of the South is not held in our hands; we do not own banks, iron and steel mills, railroads, office buildings, ships, wharves, or power plants" (38).

Spirituality in the Face of Oppression

"What we have not dared to feel in the presence of the Lords of the Land, we now feel in church."
(Wright 68)

Awesomeness by: Claire Peckham and Alexis Cownan 

"While we are leaving, our black boys come back from Flanders, telling us of how their white officers of the United States Army had treated them, how they had kept them in labor battalions, how they had Jim-Crowed them in the trenches even when they were fighting and dying, how the white officers had instructed the French people to segregate them," (88).

"The land we till is beautiful, with red and black and brown clay, with fresh and hungry smells, with pine trees and palm trees" (32)

We Work

In the main, we black folk earn our living in two ways in the northern cities: we work as domestics or as laborers. Pg. 117

Pastoral Photograph

"At midday the sun blazes and bleaches the soil. Butterflies flit through the heat; wasps sting sharp, straight lines; birds fluff and flounce, piping in querulous joy." (Wright 32)

Play

"They say we speak treasonably when we declare that human life is plastic, that human nature is malleable, that men possess the dignity and meaning of the environmental and institutional forms through which they are lucky or unlucky enough to express themselves" (130)

For me, a big part of the fascination of 12 Million Black Voices is Wright's account of the relationship between the African-American experience and art. Wright seems to suggest a complex relationship between subjugation and aesthetics, whereby music and literature and painting (and, perhaps a bit later, film) participate in the politics of racial inequality whether or not such works of art were created with an explicitly political message or intention. For Wright, art becomes a means by which disenfranchised African-American communities come to terms with an often unjust and hostile world; the beauties and pleasures of art can be a means of escape from life's cruelties, but they can also be a means of constructing them differently, of learning to see the world in a way that racist whites can't or won't. It's interesting that the meaning and nature of African-American seems to vary with the perspectives of its audience. The music and writing of the "Black Belts" seems strange and threatening to racist white onlookers- that very same impulse of escape and recreation seems like rebellion and iconoclasm to those on the other end of the racial divide.

Discussion questions: what relationship does 12 Million Black Voices suggest between art and politics? Can escapism and beauty be forms of rebellion?

"The seasons of the plantation no longer dictate the lives of many of us; hundreds of thousands of us are moving into the sphere of conscious history.
We are the new tide. We stand at the crossroads. We watch each new procession. The hot wires carry urgent appeals. Print compels us. Voices are speaking. Men are moving! And we shall be with them..." (147)

Wright spends roughly 140 pages describing, in harrowing detail, the plight of the average African-American and the roles they played in Southern and Northern society. It is, therefore, nice to see him ending on a seemingly positive note. The closing paragraph and accompanying picture of a man with his face upturned and his expression positive, encapsulates the journey that African-Americans have made from despair to the strong hope of change. Wright expresses, in strong terms, the dream of African-Americans to become a part of American life and partake of the successes and opportunities available to others. He acknowledges the importance of cooperation between whites and blacks but also recognizes that the African-American consciousness has been moulded by their experiences with whites. With the last passage, he highlights their endurance and their strong will to fight back against the injustice of oppression and make a change for themselves. 12 Million Black Voices is a compelling narrative about the sufferings of African-Americans at the hands of the whites, but it's also a declaration of the strength and perseverance that characterizes them. Wright still uses "us-them" language, but here I think it is necessary to use this kind of divisive language to indicate that they are a people who are no longer taking no for an answer and who are fed up of the alienation imposed by the South and the Black Belt in the North and are ready to become part of a new era of  tolerance and acceptance. He uses short, emphatic phrases to drive the point home but what intrigued me was the ellipses at the end of the last sentence. It seems to serve as a form of temperance to his prior declarations but it seems ill-fitting, given that his earlier sentences are empassioned and straightforward.

Question: why do you think Wright chose to end 12 Million Black Voices in such a manner? Does it affect the impact that the ending had on you? Would you say the ending is positive or cautious?

Seeking Inclusion

"It is when we seek to express ourselves that the paradoxical cleavage in our lives shows most. Day after day we labor in the gigantic factories and mills of Western civilization, but we have never been allowed to become an organic part of this civilization; we have yet to share its ultimate hopes and expectations. Its incentives and perspectives, which form the core of meaning for so many millions, have yet to lift our personalities to levels of purpose. Instead, after working all day in one civilization, we go home to our Black Belts and live, within the orbit of the surviving remnants of the culture of the South, our naive, casual, verbal, fluid folk life." (Wright 127)

Here, Wright reflects on the seemingly inherent futility of the goal of cultural homogeneity between whites and blacks in America. Although legally granted citizenship, Wright sees a country that is culturally unwilling to assimilate and associate with black culture. Wright elucidates the fact that until people are ready to actively afford blacks the same treatment as whites, there will forever be a barrier that actively furthers the distance and hostility between the two groups. The underlying act of disassociation serves only to weaken the country as a whole and set back any kind of cultural homogeneity that could be achieved through more widespread acceptance of black citizens. By actively shunning black culture, there is an almost conscious damnation of any kind of social progress made by blacks and in doing so binds black citizens to the "remnants" of their own Southern culture wholly removed from the world around them.

QUESTION: Wright suggests that since blacks are consciously excluded from the American civilization, great dividends could be reaped from acceptance and inclusion into the more mainstream sphere of existence in the country. How does this help inform Wright's usage of terms like 'we,' 'us,' and 'you' earlier in the book?

The Long March Home

"Lord in Heaven! God God Almighty! Great Day in the Morning! It's here! Our time has come! We are leaving! We are angry no more; we are leaving! We are bitter no more; we are leaving! We are leaving our homes, pulling the stakes up to move on. We look up at the high southern sky and remember all the sunshine and the rain and we feel a sense of loss, but we are leaving." (Wright 92)

Wright creates this atmosphere of reigning victory and joy with the opening paragraph, implying the duality of nostalgia and future promise the African American masses felt at the end of the reign of slavery. He utilizes repetition, continuously exclaiming, "We are leaving" (Wright 92). The repetition successfully complements the elated moment because of its implied depth. The continuous reappearance of the phrase highlights the awe and utter shock the African American masses felt, giving way to the incredulous emotional response that resulted from abolition. The repetition gives way to a stream of consciousness dictation, as if the collective speaker is in disbelief, repeatedly remarking the idea of leaving, as if in disbelief. Slavery in the South proved to be a time of turmoil and relentless conflict for the emerging cultural group, providing the African American identity with unity on the base of prejudice and prosecution. The simple three words "we are leaving" implies a decisive driving force that they will undoubtedly leave as one, in promise of a better future, these emotions unanimously resonate in the speaker's voice. Wright's repetition of phrase brings the reader to realize the importance of this mass migration of Black people to the North and its historical and emotional impact on the emerging culture as a whole. 

Discussion Question: 

If the newly freed African American population knew of the prejudice and the hardship they would face on Northern soil prior to the mass migrations which followed abolition, would they have left the South? Why or why not?

The Scottsboro Boys

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/SB_acct.html

Richard Wright, taking on the voice of African Americans, particularly freed slaves traveling North for work, makes a reference to the nine "Scottsboro Boys," who in 1931 were accused of gang raping two white girls on a Southern Railroad freight run. Wright places the reference in very close proximity to an argument about the road in which black and white people have travelled. He writes;

"We were able to seize nine black boys in a jail in Scottsboro, Alabama, lift them so high in our collective hands, focus such a battery of comment and interpretation upon them, that they became symbols to all the world of the plight of black folk in America," (145).

"If we had been allowed to participate in the vital processes of America's national growth, what would have been the texture of our lives, the pattern of our traditions, the routine of our customs, the state of our arts, the code of our laws, the function of our government! Whatever others may say, we black folk say that America would have been stronger and greater!" (145).

Wright continues to argue that Africans who were brought to America to be slaves, have travelled the same road in 300 years that whites have traversed in 3,000. Do you agree? And what might it mean for Wright to place the Scottsboro Boys reference right next to the idea that our lives would have been remarkably different had African Americans been able to "participate in the vital processes of America's national growth"?

In autumn, the land is afire with color (32).

"Queen Cotton"

"From now on the laws of Queen Cotton rule our lives. (Contrary to popular assumption, cotton is a queen, not a king. Kings are dictatorial; cotton is not only dictatorial but self-destructive, an impervious woman in the throes of constant childbirth, a woman who is driven by her greedy passion to bear endless bales of cotton, though she well knows that she will die if she continues to give birth to her fleecy children!) If we black folk had only to work to feed the Lords of the Land, to supply delicacies for their tables- as did the slaves of old for their masters- our degradation upon the plantations would not have been the harshest form of human servitude the world has ever known. But we had to raise cotton to clothe the world; cotton meant money, and money meant power and authority and prestige. To plant vegetables for our tables was often forbidden, for raising a garden narrowed the area to be planted in cotton. The world demanded cotton, and the Lords of the Land ordered more acres to be planted- planted right up to our doorsteps! - and the ritual of Queen Cotton became brutal and bloody" (38).

      I really enjoy Wright's style of writing here. It comes across as poetic and powerful more than just historical. I have always been accustomed to hearing the term "King Cotton" in history and have never really realized that his description of it makes so much more sense. His comparing of the cotton to a "self-destructive", dictatorial woman in constant childbirth really adds to one's understanding of just how harsh it was in those times; there really was no end to it. And even worst, everything revolved around cotton. It was central to the Bosses of the Buildings "owners of the industry", the Lords of the Land, and especially the slaves. It was all a ritual. Buried underneath the never ending cotton was their liberation- unreachable, to say the least.  The writing style used in this passage, and throughout the work, captures the reader like no other history book may have done before. Wright's use of "us" to describe the chain of events that went on gives us a voice that we can rely on to really feel what went on in those plantations and on those ships. I really can't say much more other than the fact that I really enjoy his powerful imagery and use of ideas such as in the line "we had to raise cotton to cloth the world". "Queen Cotton" will now forever replace what I once thought was King.

How does Wright's writing style move you and encourage you to experience historical events, perhaps already known, differently than any other history book you may have come across before?    

American South <=> Nazi Germany?

“To paint the picture of how we live on the tobacco, cane, rice, and cotton plantations is to compete with mighty artists: the movies, the radio, the newspapers, the magazines, and even the Church. They have painted one picture: charming, idyllic, romantic; but we live another: full of the fear of the Lords of the Land, bowing and grinning when we meet white faces, toiling from sun to sun, living in unpainted wooden shacks that sit casually and insecurely upon the red clay” (35).

            As I read this quote, I immediately thought of Nazi propaganda in Germany in the 1930s. When Hitler first began using internment camps, they were made out to be not unlike a normal prison, complete with fields for playing sports. The truth about the brutality of Himmler’s KZ camps was masked from the public as far as propaganda went. Of course, we now know that these camps were the Nazi regime’s way of removing “undesirables,” as any non-Aryan or disabled person was known.

            However, despite the attempts to conceal what was happening, Germans knew about the intense persecution, and even had an idea of the violence of the camps. This quote leads me to draw a comparison between the treatment of African Americans in the South and Jews in Nazi Germany. Despite the picture that was painted of slavery in the South, Americans knew the way the slaves were treated, and yet nothing significant was done about it for a long time. This was because, much like the Jews in Germany, African Americans were viewed as “undesirable” in American society, lower forms of life that didn’t deserve rights or even a place among the more superior race (Aryanization). The only difference is the Nazis final solution to this problem was genocide, while America’s solution was slavery.

            In light of the similarities between the two situations, in addition to the commonplace of lynching in the South, how many degrees away from genocide was American slavery?

"The word negro, the term by which, orally or in print, we black folk in the United States are usually designated, is not really a name at all nor a description, but a psychological island whose objective form is the most unanimous fiat in all American History."

Before I talk about my moment I want to comment on Wright's use of the words us and we. I thought Wright chose a really interesting writing style. I assume that this was written for a black and white audience. For the white audience the use of us could creates an image of the author in every situation, calling attention to every injustice on a very personal level. Or it could cause a white reader to feel alienated from the text. While to a black audience the use of us could have created a sense of unity. Do you think Wright chose this style to call both white and black audiences to act? Or do you think it draws more attention to the color line?

Wright refers to the word Negro as a psychological island. I take this to mean that the word secludes them, completely shuts them off from the people in society who do not go by the name negro. I am not sure how to take the way Wright...well writes. As a present day reader I do not know his goal in this text. Did he want to unite blacks and whites together? Or did he believe white Southerners were beyond help and therefore blacks must utilize this "islands" by coming together? I don't know. What do you believe Wright's style of writing says about his message?

Slaves of Alien Tribes

"The Lords of the Land decreed that we must be distributed upon the plantations so that no two of us who spoke a common tongue would be thrown together, lest we plot rebellion. So they shackled one slave to another slave of an alien tribe. Our eyes would look wistfully into the face of a fellow-victim of slavery, but we could say no word to him. Though we could hear, we were deaf; though we could speak, we were dumb!"


Wright's prose is accompanied by many pictures that illustrate the realistic nature of his words. What comes to my eyes first when seeing those pictures is the wrinkled and worn hands of the sharecroppers and other eldery who most likely have spent their lives working on the land. This quote puts into perspective how isolated many of the slaves must of felt being paired with someone that shared their same plight and struggles but had no way of communicating about it until a new way of communication was developed. The last line of the quote is quite poetic as it tells how even the basic liberties of speech and hearing were useless in their situation. I thought Wright's prose was interesting and gave vivid detail into many of the hardships the slaves and sharecroppers endured. I too thought that Wright highlighted well the strifes faced without assigning propaganda as he moved from event to event.

Discussion Question- Of the pictures illustrated which stands out to you the most as a reader?

The Oratory.

"We proceeded to build our language in inflections of voice, through tonal variety, by hurried speech, in honeyed drawls, by rolling our eyes, by flourishing our hands, by assigning to common, simple words new meanings, meanings which enabled us to speak of revolt in the actual presence of the Lords of the Land without their being aware!"

I found Wright's prose on the history and state of Black America to be interesting and compelling. He passes through events in time without being a historian, and highlights anecdotes of strife without completely assigning propaganda. In this passage, he shows the necessity of the oratory and the dialect in Black America, and later on reiterates it through the passage about songs and church. He also makes sure to point out that the songs are not always convincing enough to cover the abhorred thralldom of their lives under plantations and poverty. The most compelling part of this prose for me was the pictures. The intensity of realism brought his words to life. 

THE SOUTH

It's not my day to post, but I thought this map might prove helpful to some. I didn't even know what all states were considered part of "The South" before I saw it. This is THE SOUTH, as made official by the U.S. Census Bureau.

"Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes"

"Darl has gone to Jackson. They put him on the train, laughing, down the long car laughing, the heads turning like the heads of owls when he passes. "What are you laughing at?" I said.
     "Yes yes yes yes yes."
     Two men put him on the train. They wore mismatched coats, bulging behind over their right hip pockets. Their necks were shaved to a hairline, as though the recent and simultaneous barbers had had a chalk-line like Cash's. "Is it the pistols you're laughing at?" I said. "Why do you laugh?" I said. "Is it because you hate the sound of laughing?"
... Darl is our brother, our brother Darl. Our brother Darl in a cage in Jackson where, his trimmed hands lying light in the quiet interstices, looking out he foams.
     "Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes" (253).

     Darl's final section just does it for me. The voice we relied on for reason and the slightest of normalcy is now lost somewhere in the ashes of that burned barn. It seems somewhat ironic that the act meant to be the one which would snap the family out of the madness backfires and instead puts Darl into this crazed state of mind. I can't stop but wonder if he was actually crazy all along. Even in the earlier part of the novel he claims to be hearing the thoughts of those around him, and we also know that he "witnesses" occurrences that he is not actually present for. "As you enter the hall, they sound as though they were speaking out of the air about your head" (20). By the end of the novel, it seems that Darl loses this aspect of himself and succumbs to the madness all around him. He can no longer see through the perspectives of his siblings and assumes what they are saying in his broken mind. "Darl is our brother, our brother Darl. Our brother Darl..." He becomes one with all of which surrounds him and falls victim to his family's final judgment; and they hardly care at all. The question he keeps asking himself is also quite intriguing; why exactly is  he laughing? Could it be that when one reaches a point of unbelievability and ridiculousness towards a situation, one can't help but just laugh at it? I've seen this pattern all too much in several other places and as far as I know, this is how the hero (or neutral) becomes the villain. This maniacal laughter is a turning point in the novel and convinces us that the most "normal" person all along has been none other than Cash.

Questions to Discuss: Why is Darl laughing? And how, as the reader, are we supposed to feel about Darl's being sent to the mental institution? Do we feel bad for him or do we just shrug it off while we eat our bananas from a paper bag?

The Modern Age Sinks In

"A car comes over the hill.  It begins to sound the horn, slowing.  It runs along the roadside in low gear, the outside wheels in the ditch, and passes us and goes on.  Vardaman watches it until it is out of sight." (227)

To my memory, this is the first time that an automobile is mentioned in this novel.  Granted, there is a lot to remember in this novel and the word could have appeared before, but I do not remember it if that is so.  Throughout the novel, we travel with this rural family in a mule-drawn wagon through the countryside on their journey to the city of Jefferson.  All of a sudden, when they reach the city, automobiles start showing up.  This sudden appearance of modern technology completely threw off my assumptions of when this novel takes place.  I now believe that it takes place in a more modern age of an industrialized South.

If that is the case, then this novel contains that theme which has been prevalent in many of the works which we have read thus far in this class: that of residents of the old South holding onto their old traditions while they still can.  This eventually led me to realize that this could be the entire theme of the book.  The Bundrens' journey to bury Addie in  her final resting place is their way of keeping her around them while they still can.  They know that, once they bury her, they will have to enter a new era in their lives, and so they want to hold on to her as long as they can.  This also symbolizes the remnants of the old South not wanting to enter the modern age.  The Bundrens live in a rural area where modern technology is not present at all.  It seems to me as if they have purposely tried to avoid modern technology with their lifestyle.  Like Sally Poker Sash in "A Late Encounter With the Enemy" or Emily Grierson in "A Rose For Emily," the Bundren family is clinging onto the remnants of their past.  However, the appearance of that automobile changes everything in my opinion.

Also notable is the fact that the automobile is pointed out by Darl.  I don't know what anyone else thought, but what I picked up from the novel's description of Darl's actions was that Darl was trying to get rid of Addie sooner than they had planned.  First in the river, and then in the barn, he seemed to want to let go of Addie, and therefore of the past, so that they could get on with their lives in a new era.  Therefore, it is relevant that he of all people points out the presence of the automobile here.  I believe that, had this section been narrated by anyone else, the automobile would not have been mentioned.

Discussion Question: Do you believe that Darl burned the barn in order to let go of Addie?  Why or why not?  Do you believe that the Bundrens are better off without Addie or not?

My Ride On Anse's Roller coaster

“’It’s Cash and Jewel and Vardaman and Dewey Dell,’ pa says, kind of hangdog and proud too, with his teeth and all, even if he wouldn’t look at us. ‘Meet Mrs. Bundren,’ he says.” (261)

As I got further and further into ‘As I lay Dying’, my perception of Anse’s character took so many different twists and turns, that I just had to laugh when I realized that throughout this story it was not only Anse that was a fool, but myself as well. In the beginning, I pictured an old and tired man not knowing how to cope with the loss of his diseased wife, blaming the weather and an ill-placed road for Addie’s death.  As the story progressed, I saw his intentions for his wife’s body as being honorable and brave for going on this dangerous journey to fulfill her final wish.  Faulkner tricked me into thinking Anse’s self centered ways were merely a form of his foolish, manly, southern pride for himself.  However, throughout this final portion, I began to see Anse for the selfish man he truly was.

The final gotcha moment that Faulkner hits us with allows us to see Anse’s intentions come full circle. We knew that Anse wanted new teeth when he arrived in Jefferson, but we (or at least I didn't) didn't know that that wasn’t the only new thing he was looking for.  As I began to piece the puzzle together, I thought back to his “prideful” nature, and realized that every second of the Bundren family journey dishonored Addie more and more. As he continues to insist on dragging her decomposing corpse into one foreign town after another, he keeps bringing indignity upon everyone associated. At each stop on their journey, the Bundren’s hosts always comment to him that he is not doing the right thing by taking her to Jefferson, but we soon see why Anse had no intentions of stopping short. Once in Jefferson, he helps himself bury any memory of his previous wife by using the spades of the new Mrs. Bundren he has found. Although I didn’t see it coming, I didn’t astonish me that Anse would do something like this. His disrespectful and closed nature would allow him to pick up another woman in what seemed like seconds after he dug a hole to throw his previous wife into. He has that same hangdog look he has had throughout, knowing he has done wrong, but ultimately finding joy for himself. I believe Faulkner used this form of writing, in which we see everybody’s point of view, to help us see that not everyone draws the same conclusion about what is happening. And Anse’s persona helps us see that; his family has suffered the entire journey, yet he finds a way to take full advantage and add a new wife.

Discussion Questions: Did anybody else see Anse as merely a prideful man until the last few sections? Can we view this as a happy, yet sinister, ending since most of the Bundren family got what seemed to be a better and more desired situation in the end?