“I wisht I could die. Die right now to spite his sorry ass. Yes sir. To show he ain’t got no power over death. Yes sir. I could die right now – content” (48).

I found this statement to be one of both sadness and empowerment. It once again reminded me of the condition of the Jews within the concentration camps. The Nazis’ goal was to strip away all forms of dignity and humanity, leaving nothing but a primitive struggle for survival. There were very few cases of armed resistance, but many stories have since come out of the Holocaust of what’s known as spiritual resistance. This encompasses any act meant to fight against this removal of humanity, be it keeping up appearances, sharing food, refusing to have one’s baby aborted, or even suicide. The Germans wanted to control every aspect of Jewish life, including the time and means of death. An act of spiritual resistance, then, would be taking control of one’s own death. It’s both sad and empowering. This story seems to take place in the first half of the 20th century, when white people still had control and sway over the minorities. Stokes, as it turns out, acted in both armed and spiritual resistance, by killing the dog of a white man and seemingly taking control of his own death. While both of these acts involve death, it seems that this was Stokes way of living outside of oppression; only by killing and dying could he truly have freedom.

I never quite understood the significance of Chi. I’m sure we will discuss it, but I’ll ask anyway. Why was Chi a part of this story? Did Chi kill Stokes?

Racial Blindness

"The Terrell boys jumped in front of Mr. John Edgar but he did not stop; merely leveled his gun, cocked it, and kept walking.  The boys got out of the way.  'Crazy old nigger.  What's he doing?' " (38)

This utterance of the n-word was the point of the story in which I realized that John Edgar was African American.  I cannot be sure if I missed anything earlier than this in the story, but I do not remember seeing any prior signifiers of this.  Naturally, discovering this lent a completely new edge to the story which, up to that point, had felt like nothing more than a story about an average Southerner who cared for a stranger and went to avenge his dog's death.  Now, the race issue was haeted up further.

I use the word 'further,' because the race issue was already introduced in the character of Chi.  Frequently, he is referred to as a Chinaman, and John looks upon his early morning activities in the back yard as strange.  Before we find out John Edgar's race, I thought that his mild discomfort with Chi signified that he was white, and this was Randall Kenan's commentary on a less discussed form of racism in the old South.  Can his attitude toward Chi be considered racist?  He is not openly hostile to him.  Contrarily, he is incredibly hospitable and caring toward him.  But there is still the issue of his outlook upon his skin color and his habits.

I'm not going to lie: I do not fully understand the message in this story.  I'm still trying to work it through in my head.  I did understand the plot progression.  I was very involved, especially when I discovered that he was African American.  That discovery really ratcheted up the intensity level of that scene of revenge.  I did feel bad about Terrell's puppy having to die, but I was still satisfied that John Edgar got his revenge somehow, especially considering the flat-out grotesque nature of their actions toward his dog (as well as their overall grotesque personalities).  But, still, I don't understand exactly what Kenan is trying to say about race in this story.  I know he is trying to say something, but I am having trouble deciphering the message.

Question: Did anyone realize that he was African American prior to the moment that I pointed out?  What do you believe is Kenan's message about race here?

"He took a step forward and Mr. John Edgar raised the gun to the level of the boy's heart." Pg.38

The action taken by Mr. John Edgar in this scene struck me as a representation of changing southern attitudes. The death of his dog Shep has certainly caused him pain but instead of taking it with a grain of salt and trying to avoid confrontation, he breaks the norm by threatening the white family responsible and murdering one of their dogs. We have read many stories in this course that involve black southern characters facing oppression and injustice and the safest and most common defensive strategy for these characters has been passive resistance. Any time these characters have resisted physically or verbally they have been left with mortal consequences. Yet Mr. John Edgar purposefully and calmly murders one of the Terrell dogs and threatens to shoot each of the family members as they try to defend their pet. It could be argued that Mr. John Edgar reacted this way because of the arrival of Chi. While we dont know much about Mr. John Edgar before he encounters Chi, it is reasonable to assume, (because he is an old man and has apparently lived in the same place for many years) that he has encountered the Terrell family before and likely suffered some previous transgressions. Yet he has apparently never reacted with violence before. It seems that witnessing the aftermath of Chi's apparent quarrel with intolerance pushed him to an emotional edge and when confronted with the murder of his dog, he decided to make his judgment known. Perhaps this scene represents a change in black southern attitudes, reflecting the spread of public protest in the south as well as the civil rights movement. The extremely violent reaction of Mr. John Edgar and his attitude about it could be used to represent the violent resistance movement of the black panthers and other militant groups. Any way you look at it Mr. John Edgar seems to be doing more than just avenging Shep. He seeems to be shouting at the intolerance of his homeland, "An Eye for an Eye and a Tooth for a Tooth. That's the onliest Law i'm studying about."

Question: Is Kenan trying to reflect a change in southern attitudes? Who the hell is Mr. Chi?

Things of this World

""Seems like up to now I been sitting right here in this chair waiting, waiting. But you know what?" "No, sir." "It who was worth it. Worth it to see the look on that ole Terrell's face. I stood up to that cocksucker. Yes sir"" (48).

Although John Edgar's actions in the short story seem to be characterized by simple revenge, the weight of his decisions and the stony conviction that he displays in their wake lend special significance to his actions. After killing the Terrell's hound, John Edgar moves with an unflinching authority seemingly stemming from the anger of having his dog murdered. He declares that his justice is fair and Biblical, lying outside any of the unfair boundaries prescribed by the corrupt and racist Terrells. John Edgar's passion seems to infect the people that rally around him as both the doctor and the reverend find themselves exhibiting tremendous courage in the face of the danger of the swelling throngs of policemen gathering outside the yard. John Edgar's actions carry such weight that the sheriff is frightened into calling for backup and the Terrells demanding that someone else do their dirty work for them. Only in the end of the story does the reader finally get to hear John Edgar's actual feelings about his actions as he finally breaks his silence, revealing a level of satisfaction and pride in being able to stand up for something he knows is right. And at precisely that moment of personal revelation, John Edgar allows himself to die. Content that he had finally made some good of his otherwise placid life, he concedes that he can finally die with a sense of pride. Chi ominously concurs.

Question: The title of the story is Things of this World and Chi is clearly a nearly supernatural character whose arrival and departure frames the story, what purpose does he play in delivering the story's intended message?

Angels Unawares

"Mr. John Edgar looked around and scratched his head, wanting to have a witness before proceeding. Not particularly eager to flip the thing over and say "Morning," to the Grim Reaper. He felt a creepy sensation in the back of his neck," (25).

In Randall Kenan's Things Of This World, race relations and religion merge into one mutual force of vindication; an eye for an eye, a dog for a dog, and everyone else now blind. Each character in the story seems to symbolize some type of Paradise Lost-like archetype, in that Mr. John Edgar Stokes seems to have fallen from grace as he retaliates against Terrel and then stands his ground from the cops on the porch with his gun; Lucifer defending his new earthly, sin-filled kingdom. Chi, is a black angel of death, a grim reaper, and his presence in Mr. Stoke's backyard at the beginning of the story is an ill omen, and sure enough, it is Chi who kills him; leaving as quickly as he came, bringing to the fallen angel the Hell he had already brought upon himself.

What does the subtitle of the story, "Angels Unawares," mean for the Paradise Lost-type of reading? and what does the fight between Percy Terrel and Mr. Stokes symbolize?

Charon

I don’t have a particular excerpt from the movie to point out, but this is more of an overall observation of the film. It opens with our three characters breaking away from the other convicts and coming to a man on a handcar that seems the play the role of an oracle. We also see this individual at the closing of the film, pumping away. I immediately realized this was an allusion to Greek mythology’s Charon, the ferryman that transports people to and from the underworld. We also have the sirens and one-eyed Big Dan Teague. What are other connections to Greek mythology throughout the film?

What exactly do these allusions do for the film? Do they work for it or against it?  Cliché or genius? 

O my God, they killed Petey!

“I generally refrain from speech during gustation. There are those who attempt both at the same time; I find it course and vulgar. Where were we?”
“Makin’ money in the Lord’s service.”
“…Yes, Bible sales…One, where to find a wholesaler. The word of God in bulk as it were!” (52:25)

In this film, the Coen brothers do a fantastic job of creating vast caricatures of stereotypes of the South, often to the point to ridiculousness. This technique has often been used in TV and film for the purpose of destroying a stereotype. Examples of this can be seen in the 1970s’ blaxploitation films, often featuring a black male that heavily exaggerates the many stereotypes of black men. It’s a way to expose the absurdity of racism inherent in our society. While this particular scene is dealing with a different subject, I believe the Coen brothers are doing something similar. Big Dan T is a character that knows how to exploit the southern religious system for his own benefit. He makes his living as a con man, hiding behind the pious title of a Bible salesman. Using religion as the means to an end is not isolated to this scene. It is also reflected in Stokes’ speech to the KKK, essentially saying that Tommy must be hanged; it’s the will of God. Religion has been used as a failsafe for many years in the South, with misused and misinterpreted verses in the Bible quoted to support acts of violence, greed, and hate. Of course this is not isolated to the South, but growing up in the Bible Belt made this scene stick out to me. As evidenced in this movie, people do ridiculous things in the name of the selfish and greedy god of the South.

Writing this post made me curious; is this the way southerners outside of religion view the Christian church?

Not a moment too soon.

“No, they're flooding this valley so they can hydroelectric up the whole darn state. Yes, sir, the south is gonna change. Everything's gonna run on a paying basis. Out with the spiritual mumbo-jumbo and the backward ways. We're gonna see a brave new world where they hook us all up to a grid. Yes, a veritable age of reason. Like the one they had in France. Not a moment too soon. Not a moment too soon.”(96:00)

This is the moment in the film that summed up some of the themes and ideas we have encountered throughout the works we’ve covered in class. As we’ve seen in the novels, the stereotypical representation of the old South as backwards and flooded with zeal is alive and well throughout the film. (We get somewhat the same notion of backwardness that we see in the Bundren family in Faulkner’s “As I lay Dying”). 

The technological advancement the South finally goes through, marks an important shift in the film’s plot. Whether it have been an act of God or not, the shift into an age of modernization is the very thing that saves Everett, Pete, Delmar, and Tommy. On a side note, I find it a bit ironic that Everett gets on his knees and prays for God’s mercy and just moments after he is finally “saved” (perhaps baptized, depending on how you look at it), he goes on to say “Out with the spiritual mumbo-jumbo and the backward ways.” 

The film plays with religion similar to ways Flannery O’Conner’s “The Displaced Person” does. The Coen Brothers paint us images of religion being misused and abused (the Bible salesman taking advantage of Everett and Delmar) contrasted with positive images of the way things should be (the surreal baptism ceremony). As Mark wrote, this is ultimately a clash between good and evil in which good triumphs, but evil still prevails.

I really enjoyed the film. It had the perfect mix of comedy and really neat allusions. I’ll never forget the part where they ask Tommy why he would sell his soul to the devil and he simply responds with “Well I wasn’t usin’ it.”

Q: Everett always seems to have an explanation for everything. He claims the manner in which they were saved (at the end) has a “scientific explanation.” Are you entirely on board with this? Does the film give you enough evidence or reason to believe that this was an act of God and not mere coincidence?

A Simple Tale of Good vs. Evil

"Oh, no.  No, sir.  He's white.  As white as you folks.  With empty eyes and a big, hollow voice.  He loved to travel around with a mean old hound.  That's right."  (19:24)

This is, of course, Tommy's description of the Devil, whom he "sold his soul to at the crossroads to learn to play the guitar real well."  I had viewed this film many times before I fully paid attention to this line, but, once I did, I realized who Tommy was describing.  This statement perfectly describes Sheriff Cooley, the man in pursuit of our protagonists throughout the film.  As soon as I realized this, I picked up on the overall story of this film.

On the surface, O, Brother is about three men in pursuit of treasure.  However, I view the inclusion of Tommy's description of Sheriff Cooley adds a much deeper level to the story.  Overall, it is about good versus evil.  At the beginning of the film, Pete and Delmar accept the Lord into their hearts, but Everett is still "unaffiliated," as he describes it.  Because of Everett's lack of faith, there is still room for the Devil to claim there souls.  Their lack of unity in their faith makes them an easy target for Satan, a.k.a. the Sheriff.  At the end of the film, during their final confrontation with him, Everett finally lets the Lord into his heart, right as the flood waters arrive and kill everyone around them.  These three men serve as a metaphor for the entire human race.  It's not so much about religion as it is just about the general forces of good and evil.  Religion is just the way the Coen Brothers get their message across.  As long as there is still room for evil within the human race, then, no matter how much good there is, evil can still prevail.

This is actually a common theme in many of the films from the Coen Brothers, my personal favorite filmmakers!  In Raising Arizona, it's Hi McDunnough versus Leonard Smalls, "the Lone Biker of the Apocalypse."  In The Hudsucker Proxy, it's Norville Barnes versus Sidney J. Mussberger (as well as a physical confrontation between an angel and a demon).  In The Ladykillers, it's Marva Munson versus Professor G.H. Dorr.  There is always a good, innocent person who must go up against a personification of evil.  Whom better to play that in O, Brother, a film set in the rural South during the Depression, than a Sheriff?  The law was always seen as one of the most racist forces during these times, and so a sheriff seems like the perfect person to represent evil.  Also, I should note that the films I have mentioned here are comedies.  In all of them, good has triumphed over evil.  However, the Coens have also made some darker, more serious films which also contain personifications of evil, such as Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men.  The outcome was not so positive in that film, and it is always a lot murkier in their more serious fare.

QUESTION: Tommy said that he sold his soul to the Devil, so he has already willingly turned to evil.  Yet, at the end of the film, he is "allowed" to live?  Why do you think this is?

Praise the Lord, I saw the light

"Well that was some fun, though, wasn't it, George?"

"Yeah."

"Almost makes me wish I hadn't been saved. Jackin' up banks! I can see how a fella'd derive a whole lot of pleasure and satisfaction out of it." (36:33)

I can't even bring myself to call Delmar a hypocrite- he's just so much fun. The essence of Delmar is that he goes along with everything, and does it so cheerfully and good-naturedly that it never seems insincere. When Delmar and Pete rush so eagerly to get themselves baptized, they seem to do it for little more reason than that the congregation happens to have come by at that moment. One senses that, for all his religious enthusiasm, Delmar wouldn't have given the salvation of his soul a second thought if he and his friends hadn't stumbled onto a baptism ceremony. Yet in the scenes following his encounter with the congregation, Delmar takes his newfound faith quite seriously- this doesn't stop him, though, from being delighted by George's bank robbery. He observes the contradiction between this delight and the religious ideals he should be upholding, but brushes his doubts off without worry ("almost makes me wish I hadn't been saved"). One would be tempted to call it a parody of religious hypocrisy if Delmar weren't so earnest and bighearted about everything he did. He'll commit himself to Christian morality one minute and take pleasure in a bank robbery the next, and to him, there's nothing terribly problematic about that.

At the risk of reading too much into things, I think that the Coen brothers are painting a great portrait of the Southern Baptist faith here, with its odd balance of rigid morality and gleeful licentiousness. That's not a slight to Southern Baptism either, by the way- it has always struck me as one of the most complicated and interesting of Christian denominations.

Questions: What, if anything, does O Brother Where Art Thou say about Southern religious assumptions? How representative of Southern Baptist thinking is Delmar?

"'I just don't think it's right, keeping him under wraps like we's ashamed of him'
'Well, if it is Pete, then I am ashamed of him!" (48:49 49:04)

I had never watched this movie prior to yesterday and it's already one of my favourites. Like Stuck Rubber Baby, the story is dependent upon various elements to produce a coherent and believable recreation of the post-war South. In the case of O Brother, Where Art Thou, the plot, the acting, the cinematography, and the music do a fantastic job of this. The movie has a weird but pleasant blend of history and a certain kind of surrealism that makes all the ridiculous events that take place seem perfectly logical.

I don't have a specific moment to comment about (I apologise about this) - I chose this because I thought it was hilarious (the timing was perfect). My question is: do you think the more serious matters in the movie (such as the KKK scene) should have had less humour? What I mean to say is, do you think that the level of humour present in the movie detracted from the seriousness of the issues of the South or did it serve to highlight them? Basically, could the movie have worked without its undercurrent of humour?


(Sorry for the confusing wording!)

"...I blundered into it full force... and went sprawling. If i just hadn't- (lemme start again.) If i just hadn't bumped my damn head into his shoes" pg 177-78.

 I wanted to comment about some of the artwork in this story considering that it is the only book we have read that contains illustrations. Earlier we talked about how the illustrations and the narration are two equal parts of the same whole. I found that this particular scene truly embodies this relationship. When read without the drawings, this scene would be confusing and almost completely ambiguous. Cruse dosent explicitly explain that sammy has been lynched and is now hanging from a tree in the backyard and the illustrations don't show any images of sammy's body in full detail. In one frame all we see is sammy's leg, disguised as a tree trunk and even when we are shown the whole of sammy's body, his face is strategically covered by a concerned Riley. All of the images and language seem to be delicatley hiding the more graphic truth about the scene. I was brought back to the first class session when we talked about the softness contained within Cruse's art work. It seems that this soft, roundedness is what makes the very real and frighteneing subject matter more surprising and emotionally striking. I cant help but wonder why Cruse chose to hide one of his more striking moments behind so much static.

Questions: Why did Cruse choose to hide some of the more gripping parts of this scene? and Does anyone else think it is creepy that sammy was hung from a tree house?

Be Like Them

"I'm a coward in some ways... but in other ways, I'm brave. Nobody's brave all the time. But for goodness sake Toland, don't act so deprived! If you want me to sing for you, I'll sing for you. Just come over here to the house now an' again when you've got time to kill. We'll come out here on the stoop an' you can watch me sing for the birds in the yard! They don't review me for the newspapers! They don't cluster in chairs to stare at me! An' they don't expect me to be anybody besides who I naturally am! Be like them honey, an' I'll sing for you whenever you like" (205).

Although taken out of context, Anna's impassioned advice to Toland may seem just a little corny or hackneyed, this moment stands as one of the most powerful and cathartic moments in Stuck Rubber Baby. Toland wrestles with the weighty issues of Sammy's death and his implicit belief that he played a part in it, his child, and coming to terms with his sexuality. All of these factors become the focal point through which his world and the decisions made within it become all the more confounding and difficult. It is for this reason that Anna's down-to-earth wisdom comes as a refreshingly simple breath of air. Amidst the immense struggles that Toland has faced throughout the novel, this brief, although powerful, piece of advice alleviates some of the intense drama that both he and the reader have endured through the story and almost miraculously, sets the story up for a happy ending. Even amidst the nearly unimaginable suffering and unbearable guilt Toland reckons with, a happy and even exciting ending can be reached, perhaps signaling that the Civil Rights Movement that the story is framed around, like Toland's own story, can have a satisfying outcome as well.

Question: Is the connection between Toland's struggles and the struggles of the emerging Civil Rights Movement compatible and was it Cruse's intention to offer a ray of hope for both battles at the end of his story?

"It could've been me" (196)

When I climbed onto the bus Monday with "Stuck Rubber Baby" in hand , I noticed a woman reading a copy of a book titled:" The Lynching of Emmett Till". It was a lengthy, dense looking novel. It got my blog-post process going as I once again thought of the similarities between our two stories: between Sammy's death and Emmet's, the effects of the deaths, and the culture surrounding them.

The ending of the book harkens back to the beginning section mentioning the Till case. As Toland is remembering the scene of Sammy's death, we see the same depiction of a face exploding that we saw when he was describing Emmet Till's head wounds (pg 2). Toland is hit in the skull while Sammy is murdered, the same part of the body where he draws such pain from Emmet's murder. Also, Toland's grief over having physically touched Sammy's body runs in the same vien of the haunting received from Emmet Till's skull, and the crooked cops who care about Sammy's justice about as much as did the cops for Emmett's.

It's clear the author thickens the strings tying the two cases together. Sammy's murder was Toland's Till case; it propelled him forward through the pain of loss. But the question I'm left wondering is how far the similarities go.

Q: Would Toland have come out publicly had Sammy not been murdered? Was his death a necessary evil for the spark of bravery?

-Hunter

It was ME that murdered Sammy Noone

"Toland... it was me that murdered Sammy Noone."
"Looking at it in retrospect, it's plain that I wasn't giving the bastard any quarter because what he'd said to me had hit way too close to home. Y'see I'd known for years that I was really the one who'd murdered Sammy Noone."

I guess I should of foreseen something terrible happening like the lynching of Sammy Noone, but unfortunately I did not. When I started to read the scene where Sammy is killed my pulse began to race, my palms began to sweat, and I started muttering warnings at the pages as if the characters could hear me and react. I was completely engulfed in the story and like every other character my emotions were at a high. I was terribly sad at the incident, which soon turned to anger. This anger searched for someone to blame, but it did not point a finger at either Orley or Toland.

So, I thought it was interesting that both of these characters felt responsible for Sammy's death instead of blaming the people truly responsible for putting the noose around Sammy's neck. Guilt and misplaced anger seem run rampant through this book and while Toland feels them frequently, it seems that almost every character feels these emotions as well.

With this in mind I cannot help but wonder if these emotions are also apparent in the South during this time. Within this book the reader witness acts of violence and hate, and the victims described feel these emotions, but what about the abusers? Are they committing these acts because they are part of that old generation and are resisting the changing ways? Or are they attempting to fill the south model that perceives African Americans below Caucasians? Could they possibly feel any guilt for their actions?

My Question: Who do you think is responsible for Sammy Noone's death? And what is the purpose for all of this guilt, does it tie any way to the southern ideologies or methods of the time?

Galaxies Away And Never Closer

"And I'll be damned if I can recall what any of them were in particular - except for these four: It could've been me." (193)

When Toland speaks before the crowd at the Alleysax, and confesses his similarities and regrets for the fallen soldier Sammy, our stuck rubber baby seems to pry himself from the cold recesses of confused and silent homosexuality in the South, and come out to the community he believes he has hurt. He finally understands what may happen when one is not completely true to oneself. What I mean to say, is that it was not enough for him to frequent the Rhombus or be nice to his newfound group of Subterraneans, his heart really needed to be able identify, in order for his position as a gay white man in the South to allow himself to sympathize with the more race related plight of those around him and find the acceptance from himself, alongside the acceptance from his group of friends; Shiloh becomes an expression of this movement, and from one foot in and out of the closet to crying before those that he really cares for, the cold hard microphone takes the cold hard feelings from Toland and his heart becomes humbled before the death and pain that the Dixie Patriot seems to have impressed upon those different of skin and sexuality.

What does it mean for the future of the South and for the future of Toland, that he could finally become unstuck, and be able to show a great deal of humanity in the face of such horrible tragedies? AND why is it important that here in the story (192) he imagines himself as Sammy, galaxies away from his own unconscious body on the night he was murdered?