Literary realism

Literary realism is represented by the following:
-A faithful representation of life
-Humble life
-Center interest in characters
This type of writing can be seen in the works that we have studied in class this far. Through Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin we see a very character based style, and a very humbling atmosphere; nothing is embellished. This style is most likely used for this story because the authors intent is to show the reality of slaves situations and convince others to accept them, and stop harsh behavior towards them.

Extra Credit Blog "Sexy"

In my opinion, Sexy by Jhumpa Lahiri does a great job of warning against false feelings. The example set through Miranda and Dev is perfect, as it demonstrates how we can all can become attracted to things that are outside of our normal everyday lives. Protagonist, Miranda is the victim of allurement in this example.  Dev is Miranda's infatuation; she is drawn to him by his "exotic" self, and his "forbidden fruit" effect. Lahiri takes this story to a close however, and ultimately reveals reality when Dev shows Miranda that he doesn't actually feel the same way for her as she does for him. Often, like Miranda, we all expect more from alluring situations and become disappointed; but as soon as we realize this, we are ready to move on and accept regular life.

The Woman Warrior

Many novelists have tried to capture what it would be like to be trapped between two worlds, they take their characters on amazing adventures and with a swish of pen, have them overcome their hardest struggles. Maxine Hong Kingston does the same thing, however, she does it for real.
Being a first generation to experience America from childhood, no one but Kingston could imagine the confusing situation of being trapped between her traditional Asian family's traditions and expectations, and American culture.
At the very start of puberty the narrator is told by her mother of an aunt she once had. Her aunt, a mystery woman who has been stripped of her name for the disgrace she brought upon her family for becoming pregnant out of wedlock, and as a result threw herself with her newborn child down a well to die.
What does this mean for the narrator?
This is all the information the narrator is allowed by her mother. Their family is private and questions are not encouraged. She is meant to only learn from the story to protect her virtue. But it strikes more than "birds and bees" questions with the narrator, to the narrator it raises questions about her identity. What does it mean to be herself within her family? What does it mean to be herself in America? Who is she?
The narrator begins to relate with her unidentified aunt, as neither of them having an identity. The narrator feels disconnected from everyone around her as she can't totally identify with either culture. Writing about her aunt helps her find herself. Empathizing with her aunt helps the narrator to put to bed any haunted feelings towards her aunts behavior, and what drove her to act the way she did. The narrator identifies what she does not agree with about her native culture, and is able to move on and create who she wants to be.

Synthesis

Clearly both Uncle Toms Cabin  and Beloved have a huge focus on how race has impacted American culture. Both novels are highly recognized, however, are very different in a couple of ways. A major difference regarding the two of these novels is who they were written by; Uncle Toms Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, a Caucasian woman. And Beloved by Toni Morrison, a African American woman. Apart from that, both novels were also written in very different time periods, in fact from Stowe's novel to Morrison's there is about a 135 year gap.
From this knowledge comes a very big question; who has more insight to the racial problems that had existed?
Many have criticized that Stowe didn't have any credibility when writing about slaves lives, as she was not black herself. It was thought that one could not simply understand anothers position by simply watching what was going on. However, Stowe does have an advantage over Morrison having lived in the time period that slavery existed.
However, while Morrison has the advantage of having claim to the African race, it can also be criticized that Morrison had no idea of the issues she aimed to address either, because she had not experienced nor observed them first hand.
So why have both these novels influenced our culture so much?
Both novels have become a clear part of American literature because they both understand the impact that slavery has had on America. While addressed in very different styles, both authors have come to understand that in order to understand a cultural issue, one must put themselves into the others shoes. Stowe is able to do so by being sympathetic towards her African American neighbors. As discussed in class, we realize that by being sympathetic to even a situation you may not know much about, you are able to better understand how one is feeling about their situation, thus taking on their burden.
Morrison is also sympathetic, however is more entitled. Because Morrison has black ancestry she is able to relate to the oppressed through a historical background.
While both authors are equitable in their attempts to relate to historical slavery, both authors also have very different intents in how they portray their understanding.
Stowe has an obvious purpose of humanizing slaves to her early American culture through her style of sentiment, whereas Morrison's intent is much more ambiguous, however, ultimately it is realized that the whole novel aims to portray the deep scars that slavery has had on America, as well as the author herself, as her ancestors were the ones who had endured this horrific past.
Ultimately, no matter the intent or the amount of relatability the authors hold, both novels act powerfully today. It is often said that history is important for the lessons it holds, and I believe this to be true. I believe that both authors have given Americans huge insight as to what consequences slavery has, as well as embody the message that all men are created equal, and should be treated as so.

Reader Response

 "We study them, we hear them, we even feel them, but we never are them."

This quote says it all when we consider Beloved. Just as we are about to understand something, the scene is gone. Just like Just as Paul D, Sethe, and Denver are about to bond, Beloved walks into their lives. Maybe Morrison writes this way because it conveys just how the characters feel about themselves. With the theme of forbidden knowledge present in the book, it more clearly shows us why we are never able to "become" our characters, because they have also been robbed of that by their white owners. Maybe it is also a technique that is used so that only those who have any inkling of what the characters are going through are able to experience it. Perhaps this insight provided by the reader perfectly sums up what Morrison was trying to convey; the idea that slaves were robbed of their identity. That the black community is not able to understand themselves because their culture has been lost to them. They are not even hybrids, they are people who have been granted the right to be human by Americans who so long ago had robbed them of their culture. I find this to be most insightful. But at the same time, I want to point out that anybody in America except for native Americans has a mixture of cultures. However I still understand the point that African Americans might feel robbed of theirs. 

Lots of comments say that this book is something that you can't put down; a book that provokes much conversation. 

There is nothing to be disagreed with in these comments, and they make up most of them.

Contemporary Connections

An article from the Huffington post titled, "Don't feed the Race Trolls," attacks white's who hide behind social media in order to send hateful messages and comments to their fellow black neighbors. It calls those who are not racist not to feed the "race trolls". If you ask me, this person who is asking us not to "feed" those who categorize, is categorizing even now by banding themselves against those how are obviously uniformed, instead of trying to find a way to peacefully show them that we are supposed to be a community. It is absolutely amazing to me, how we are a nation and a community who claim to be banded together as one, however, cannot seem to get over the act of categorizing. Categorizing is for files, and libraries; not people.
As a nation and as a world, we have so much history, and somehow only the horror stories survive, and the worst part about it is we let it fester and bleed into 2015. I thought by now we would realize that if you treat others how you would like them to act, they are more likely to take on that role. If you have confidence in your neighbor to do the right thing, they will have more reason to do the right thing, if you treat your nations leader like a leader then they will do their best for you.
Beloved has many levels to it, however, it's commentary on race is unignorable. The struggle for equality is present today, but I believe that if we moved past the problems of yesterday and tried to understand that we are a community of humanity, that we might move past the current uprisings that seem to have attached themselves to everyday news. Reading Beloved provokes these thoughts, that hopefully we can find a way in which peace can be made.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/torraine-walker/dont-feed-the-race-trolls_1_b_7091716.html
"Don't Feed the Race Trolls"
Walker, Torraine 

Part 1 Beloved project

White people are dragons and black people are beasts. Since the beginning of time it has been good vs evil, tribe against tribe, and nation against nation. We've come up with this idea that because one group of people at one time entitled themselves to become supreme, that their future sons will be born with the same agenda. We fail to realize that we are all human, and that all of humanity is capable of committing the horrors that are very much a part of our history, and are bleeding into our society today.
David Cosca writes in his article "Is Hell a Pretty Place?", that Morrison captures a garden of Eden theme, where knowledge is the forbidden fruit to blacks, "about words having the ability to create, and about deception and manipulation"(9) Cosca explores the deep set allusions of knowledge made by Morrison and believes that she pinpoints the exact problem of which society faces today. He believes that society robs us of the truth of the past, and that problems of racism still remain. He even goes as far as to say that "jingoist doctrinal systems seek to obscure; and, through various measures, that same "dragon" persistendy endeavors to obstruct the propagation of stories and facts that reflect shameful and humiliating aspects of the history of our society)', but which are easier or more comforting for many people to dismiss, ignore, repress, or revise."(10) jingoist, or jingo, originates from a euphemism for Jesus. I disagree with this statement on many levels. First by using the term jingo, Cosca offends a christian community of which early slaves were very dedicated to. While it is true that there are many horrors that we don't often discuss in detail of slavery, this doesn't mean that they are being repressed, or hidden, in fact as far as I can see, more and more literature is bringing these horrors to light, and often being read within our schools. The fact is that many horrors have become a part of the worlds history, such as the holocaust, and even before that. But why is it okay to try and suggest that the story of slaves is the only one to seem "repressed". After all it is arguable that Jewish slaves living under Egyptian rule had it much worse, but we don't see much controversy over that much anymore. Apart from that, Cosca's claim that history has even been revised in this area is even more outrageous. If he really believes that history has been rewritten in that aspect on a great enough level to be called out and shamed for, then he ought to look at the work of Joseph Stalin; a man who literally erased people from pictures to frame history. The fact is, is that such uproar is unnecessary about this specific subject, and it is unfair to make so many hateful statements about it when history has done the same horrific acts over and over again. History is meant to inform, and to educate, and to warn. History is not meant to enrage, or to turn man against man because of something that happened a hundred years ago. While Cosca's article was well written and delved into many literary geniuses made by Morrison, the conclusions were very poor in that it failed to see how far society has come.

"Is Hell a Pretty Place"
Cosca, David
Cornell