Redemption in American Literature

American literature is not my favorite thing on any day. I can think of only one American author who would fit into my personal top ten list, and it is quite possible that I am least familiar with American literature as compared to other categorizations. Despite my lack of interest and excitement about the reading materials of this course, I have learned from these American authors, even if I do not particularly enjoy all of their writings. Though I may not rush to the nearest bookstore for a complete set of their works, I thought Raymond Chandler’s story Red Wind was engaging and pretty fun to read; I enjoyed Frost’s imagery; and I appreciated T.S. Eliot’s profundity. I especially responded to the theme of redemption that can be found in Moore, Hurston, and Hughes.

Redemption is perhaps most clearly realized in Zora Neale Hurston’s story The Gilded Six-Bits, in which the protagonist Joe’s wife is unfaithful to him. For several months, Joe and Missy May struggle to reconcile with each other. Their marriage shrinks to less than a shadow of the loving relationship detailed in the first few pages. However, when Missy May gives birth to Joe’s son, Joe is able to forgive his wife. Both must sacrifice to overcome the deficiency in the marriage: Joe must relinquish his anger towards his wife, and Missy May has to acknowledge the grief that has come through her action. As a family, their lives are redeemed and knit back together.

Less overt are the themes of redemption in Langston Hughes’ and Marianne Moore’s poetry. In some ways, both hope for redemption in seemingly hopeless situations. Moore wrote In Distrust of Merits during World War II. Throughout the poem she questions the worth of the countless deaths of soldiers fighting in the war. She believes in the cause that they are fighting for,

“Fighting the blind

Man who thinks he sees…

That hearts may feel and not be numb.”

Moore acknowledges the promise inherent in supporting the soldiers, that “we’ll never hate black, white, red, yellow, Jew, Gentile, Untouchable.” Yet she still cannot quite believe that this makes the deaths worthwhile, since “we are not competent to make our vows.”

Moore has a moment of questing despair as she asks, “The world’s an orphans’ home. Shall we never have peace without sorrow? Without pleas of the dying for help that won’t come?” This is a clear example of the often overwhelming disconnect between the way things are and the way they ought to be, and Moore is understandably troubled by it. I am not trying to say that Moore is here expressing a distinctly Christian view or anything of that sort. Still, these few lines are a cry for the redemption of humanity.

In the end, Moore maintains her hope for all of the deaths to be redeemed, saying,

“If these great patient

dyings—all these agonies

and wound bearings and bloodshed—

can teach us how to live, these

dyings were not wasted.”

Hughes’ is similarly hopeful for future redemption in a different situation. Writing during a time of intense racial prejudice, Hughes’ poetry often expresses his dreams of a truly equal America.

“Tomorrow,

I’ll be at the table

When company comes…

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

Hughes displays a sense of urgency, desiring the racial/social redemption of America to come quickly. “I do not need my freedom when I’m dead./I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread,” he reminds his audience, calling for attention and change in place of lassitude and complacency. Elsewhere, he openly states that part of being American is being interdependent whether we want to be or not, despite differences in skin color.

“You are white—

yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.

That’s American.”

Hughes hopes for redemption in the negative situation through social change and recognition of the parts that each of us play in each others’ lives.

American literature may not replace my other interests any time soon, and my top ten authors list has not been disturbed by this course. But I have learned through exploring authors I liked or did not like, understood or barely managed to stumble through. American authors of this time period had a great deal to say about justice, freedom, redemption, and morality. That we are listening 60 to 100 years later says a great deal about the importance of their words.

Ain't and Such: Ebonics and Language in Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen

Most, if not all, of us are familiar with ebonics. Think back to the way that Jim talked in Huckleberry Finn and you have a pretty good idea of how the African-American slang is written out. I use the term "African-American" very deliberately here since the ebonics of black Americans differs from other Africans in the world. For example, when the Trinity Gospel Choir went on tour to England several years ago, the title for the tour was "It Ain't Over." After several days on tour, it became obvious that our audience had no idea what "ain't" meant. It was then that I began to realize that the ebonics of America were not internationally understood and I found the uses of ebonics in the poetry of both Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen to be interesting.

Word choice is often important to understanding poetry, and in the case of Hughes' poem “Mother to Son,” the language of the mother gives the woman narrator a sense of actually existing in the real world. Line two references the same thing I noted in the first paragraph: “Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.” The same voice of ebonics is used in “The Weary Blues” to give personality to the blues piano player and “Note on Commercial Theatre” with yet another blues player. Word choice is important to this accent, but so is altered grammar like in line seven, “Yep, you done taken my blues and gone.” While these seem like little observations, it is important to see why a particular voice is used in these three poems but not in others. Hughes uses the ebonic voice when the perspective of the mother and blues player is necessary, but not when the character is able to shine through in other ways like the rhyme scheme, structure, or a turn of a phrase.

Cullen uses ebonics and word choice effectively as well in “Uncle Jim.” The purpose of quoting Uncle Jim saying “White folks is white” is to convey his character. However, Cullen rarely uses colloquial language in his other poems in the anthology if ever. He prefers to use high religious language in “Yet Do I Marvel” and “Heritage” instead to convey the tone and context of the poetry. In the same way, Cullen's lack of ebonics does not mean that he is any less American than Hughes, simply different. While Hughes talks of the history of Africans in America and the African-American culture of Chicago and Harlem, Cullen's “Heritage” speaks to a desire to identify with his ethnicity and Africa but feeling unable to connect after being “centuries removed” from it.

Both poets choose their words, grammar, and structure carefully to express their feelings about culture, origins, and language. Seeing the differences between their use of ebonics and language can help us understand these poets and what they were trying to accomplish in using language that we may or may not be familiar with.

Lester's Huck - Twain's Myth v. Cultural Reality

Well, I have gone through this whole past week with a little nagging gremlin in my system that is convinced I’ve never used Blogger before in my life let alone ever being invited to contribute to one.

Clearly, technology these days is astounding.

I’m going to count my blessings though – if I’d written this a few days ago I wouldn’t have had anything nearly as interesting to share. Yes, Dr. F – that’s mostly for you and the (hoped) stability of my grade.

Reading through Julius Lester’s article (Morality and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) over the weekend has been a rather interesting experience. First, there is the ever-present issue of agendas in literature – I am no friend to criticisms that use a piece in order to argue a predetermined point. Lester, sadly, seems to only-just step to that side of the line. He remains concise and even-tempered up until the end of the article when his language shifts and becomes disappointingly combative. That said, I think he’s on to something.

Lester makes a point of something in Huckleberry Finn that I’ve been noticing for a while now too – the characters are increasingly unbelievable. Jim is a proud, free man on the raft but is an ignorant submissive otherwise. Huck is wise beyond his years and doesn’t understand “sivilization” but is also unwilling to combat social norms. Tom has a gallant spirit of Romance heroism but is also self-centered and naïve.

On top of that, every character is not only a walking contradiction but is also disconnected with reality. Nobody seems to realize that the Civil War is over, or have a very good grasp of geography for that matter. It seems as though, once Huck and Jim are on the river and separated from everyone else, they are effectively lifted out of reality – and when they come back into contact with the “real world,” it takes a fair amount of acclimatizing.

“They persist in believing that freedom from restraint and responsibility represents paradise. The eternal paradox is this is a mockery of freedom, a void. We express the deepest caring for this world and ourselves only by taking responsibility for ourselves and whatever portion of this world we make ours.” (Lester, 370)

Lester derails a bit when he asserts that this is a description of “too many other white American males.” The fact is, it’s a description of every American male, period, and an increasing number of young people in general. The characters in Huck Finn do, in fact, represent an ideal in which lack of responsibility is the definition of freedom. Huck embodies it, even Jim exists in it (he doesn’t really need legal freedom so long as he’s on the river), and Tom desperately creates it around himself. But these are characters are, by their nature, fantasies.

Fast-forward to the twenty-first century and we find exactly the same thing. Young people these days attempt to emulate examples they see on TV and in movies, where the notion of “freedom” is still that very same as they one Lester decries and that we see throughout the pages of Huckleberry Finn. But the very clear problem is that the characters living out these care-free lives are farces. Some are tragic; others (such as Twain’s) are comedic in their ability to get away with such blatant inconsistency. But when reality tries to emulate fantasy, and is unwilling to see why this is impossible, “All of us suffer the consequences as long as they do not” (Lester, 370).

Again, Lester’s frustration is aimed at white males – but the reality is far broader and more prevalent. And maybe Twain's world, be it comedic or nihilistic, which he presents in Huckleberry Finn does have something to do with it.

Emily Dickinson vs. The World - How the Poet Reacts to Absurdity

In one of my comments yesterday I mentioned that both Whitman and Dickinson unapologetically play on paradox throughout their respective work – but while Whitman’s self-contradiction seems to tend more towards relativism or universalism, Dickinson’s poetry and paradoxes exemplify something closer to absurdism.

Earlier I was asked by the precocious, ferocious, never-atrocious Jasmine Kojis (yes, I needed about a dozen more words for this) to clarify what I meant by absurd – I am referring to philosophical absurdity here rather than the actual content and imagery of Dickinson’s poems. Her realism is something I appreciate very much about her work actually, which makes her bouts of abstraction more interesting than overwhelming, and further gives weight to the way in which her verses touch on the absurd.

Historically, the 19^th century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard was the first one to discuss absurdism in the way by which we understand it nowadays – quite simply that the world in which we live is very much a collection of contradictions and impossibilities. Kierkegaard went a step further with this and, as a Christian, approached absurdity from the perspective of theistic existentialism, ie. the universe contains meaning, individuals can experience this meaning through faith, the pursuit of said meaning is purposeful despite the perceived absurdity (which both requires and is conquered by faith), and ultimately there is resolution to the individual’s quest for meaning.

Kierkegaard’s work has been widely studied, accepted and adapted, and while his initial theories of absurdity have built the backbone of several branches of philosophy, his Christian perspective is certainly not found in all of them. Nowadays, the question of the absurd is found in four major branches of philosophy – atheistic existentialism (AE), theistic existentialism (TE), absurdism (AB), and nihilism (N).

This backdrop is necessary, I think, because Dickinson makes it decidedly difficult to tell which point of view she’s coming from in regards to her poetry and themes of absurdity.

The poem “Escape” (p. 1) certainly seems like the place to start, since this is often exactly our reaction when faced with the absurd.

I never hear the word “escape”
Without a quicker blood,
A sudden expectation,
A flying attitude.

I never hear of prisons broad
By soldiers battered down,
But I tug childish at my bars, -
Only to fail again!

The image is easily one of a child struggling against the bars of its crib. Is this, then a purposeful pursuit? Yes, one might say because, if the image of the child is maintained, then growing up and reaching adulthood ends the struggle and results in meaning (TE/AB), but then again no resolution is given by the poem’s end and one may as easily assume that it’s the end of the struggle as well (AB/N).

The final verses of “I felt a funeral in my brain…” (p. 8) similarly reach this point of failure or absurdity:

Then space began to toll
As all the heavens were a bell,
And Being but an ear,
And I and silence some strange race,
Wrecked, solitary, here.

First off, we’re treated to an explicit absurdity by the line, “And Being but an ear,” which Thomas Hobbes would call, “combining the name of a body with the name of an accident.” The final image also depicts a wreck, a collision between self and silence. As this wreck appears to be the resolution of the poem, we might consider it a resolution of, again, the pursuit of meaning or understanding as shown in the rest of the piece. The wreck, then, symbolizes the outcome of this pursuit for constructed meaning (AB/N).

Despite this “wreck” however, absurdity is not accompanied by impossibility in every one of Dickinson’s poems. “Experience” (p. 41) takes us nearly to the other end of the spectrum:

I knew not but the next

Would be my final inch, -

This gave me that precarious gait
Some call experience.

Inch by inch, and each inch could be her last – this is exactly that Kierkegaard meant by stepping out in faith in the face of absurdity (TE).

Ultimately, I think what I appreciate most about Dickinson is that her poetry reflects something that contemporary critical theory, philosophy and psychology fail to take note of: however many theories may be out there, it is very rare that a human being and the human experience consistently exemplify just one of those concepts. Dickinson’s treatment of absurdity in existence is an unavoidable mix of both atheistic/humanistic and theistic existentialism, absurdism and nihilism. She experiences each of these and shows agreement to all of them yet none of them define or explain her accurately or fully, though each might claim to.

As such, Dickinson can only be defined as “human,” and her work reflects accurate, un-compartmentalize-able human experience in the face of an uncertain universe. This, in my mind, is what makes her a real pleasure to read and study.

Neither Garbage Nor Rubbish

I'm not sure how to keep the format (double-spacing, etc.) from Pages to here. Anyhow, here it is.

Andy Koenig

Word Count: 896

Throughout Walt Whitman’s poetic masterpiece Leaves of Grass, the reader gets the sense that the author believes he has it all figured out. Line after line, we feel Walt’s swagger, as if he is calling out, “I am America. Do as I say, and become fulfilled.” But along the way, the reader might become irritated. How can this man -- whose writing seems to be mere rambling -- possibly expect that anyone would take his words to heart, let alone read them to begin with? Many people agree with this sentiment. They believe Whitman is cocky, self-centered, and an obsessive patriot. In the end, some might even say it is “rubbish.”

Although his writing might be sporadic, the argument cannot end there. Writing is not just about the words on the page at face value, but about motives and emotions behind those words. So what if instead of looking at just the words on the page, we look at the motives behind the words and the effects afterwards? I believe that if we look deeper into Whitman’s intended influence, there is a lot of truth to be found. I’m not saying that the man is a genius, but we should not dismiss him completely simply because we think he’s unorthodox.

When I first began to read Leaves of Grass, I was bored and confused and did not care much for what Whitman had to say. I think I went into the book thinking that I would be disappointed. I had often heard about what a great book it was, but I’m not one to take suggestions very often. However, I was not going to be dismayed. I did something I rarely do and read the book again. This time, line after line jumped out at me, captured me, and captivated me. By the end, I was speechless. I honestly was not sure how I was supposed to write this essay. I had a million thoughts racing through my head about how brilliant this work was that I did not know where to begin.

For starters, I knew I was impressed with Whitman’s boldness. To me, Whitman’s attitude does not seem selfish, it seems confident, and it is an attitude we should all carry. I had an experience this past summer where some of my coworkers were patronizing me for doing certain things that I enjoy which they considered to be ‘weird,’ such as spending my breaks reading instead of napping. When I was asked why I chose to do these things, I replied, “Because it’s what makes me happy. I do things that make me happy, no matter what other people think.” I think this is similar to what Whitman was implying throughout Leaves of Grass. Do what makes you feel alive. Be happy. Be confident in yourself, even when the world is against you. In Whitman’s words, “Do anything, but let it produce joy.”

It is obvious that Whitman and Leaves of Grass blazed a trail for a new brand of poetry. Before Whitman, we imagine the poets as the educated sages and bards, writing in a standard form for the upper class intellectuals. However, Whitman broke the mold by writing for the ‘everyman’ in a way that was new and unusual, but still understandable. This opened the door for anyone to try to write poetry. Whitman stressed that as long as a person had emotions, experiences, or opinions, they could become a poet. Although proper writing is learned from books, substantial writing that just nails you in the gut comes from the heart. Maybe Whitman did not mean to change the standard for poetry, but I cannot imagine what it would be like if he had not done so.

I believe that even though Whitman’s influence on the art of poetry was great, his message to the nation was much greater. However, the former is more evident than the latter. By this, I mean that while Whitman tried to inspire a nation and future generations to be lovers of freedom, it is something that is often taken for granted or ignored. He wanted his readers to fall in love with America. He wanted them to embrace the American spirit and the idea of individuality. Unfortunately, this is something that the reader often overlooks. If the American population had gotten a better grip on what Whitman had to say, maybe we could be more patriotic, more thankful for our freedom, more individualistic, and more proud of our nation.

I do not believe that just a few hundred words in an essay can do Whitman justice. I believe that what Whitman had to say is much more deserving of a brief summary. Whitman’s work is so unique and superior, that I believe that to give Whitman the credit he is due, I would have to write something that reached beyond what Whitman said and match my actions with Whitman’s words. Practically, he changed the face of American poetry and literature. He genuinely captured the ideal spirit of humanity and described what it takes to live a more fulfilling life. He provoked and continues to provoke discussion and change. I’m not saying the man is worthy of our utmost praise, but he certainly is worthy of more credit than we tend to give him. His writing might have been strange, but that does not mean it is wrong.