Clara's Blog :)

     In Libra ’s plot, Nicholas Branch takes the role of a parallel character, who looks back on the main storyline we live through with Oswald and Everett, except he does it through artifacts and evidence. When we first meet him, Branch has been trying to write a secret history of JFK’s assassination for the CIA for over 15 years. As the reader moves through Lee Harvey Oswald’s life and Win Everett’s plan with the CIA, they watch the events leading up to the assassination unfold to create a narrative explanation for Oswald’s involvement in President Kennedy’s death. While the reader goes through these plots, they also get flashes of Nicholas Branch’s current state as he tries to understand the events by working backwards through evidence. However, at the end of the book, while the reader finally comes to understand the story behind the assassination, Branch descends further into a hole of confusion, surrounded by piles upon piles of evidence, none of which reveals the tr...

  The main focus of Kindred is Dana and Rufus, and the evolving yet also stagnant relationship they share throughout the novel. The story is told through Dana’s first person perspective, so as readers, we get to hear her inner monologue. However, we do not get the same viewpoint with Rufus, and we only see him through Dana’s eyes. While Rufus’s personality is objectively different from other white characters in the 18th century setting such as his father Tom Weylin, Dana’s characterization of Rufus is heavily affected by her unique familial ties with him, and it blurs the lines of Rufus’s true motivations and limits.   At the beginning of Kindred when Rufus is still a child, he’s a generally sympathetic character. The racist standards of the time are made apparent by his usage of the n word, however, he also listens to Dana when she tells him not to use it, shows interest and excitement towards Dana’s relationship with Kevin, and seems to have respect for her. With the added k...

Though I enjoyed reading Mumbo Jumbo, I think every member of our class can agree that the narrative was confusing at times. The inclusion of graphs, spontaneous lists of words, and lack of upfront exposition threw me for a bit of a loop when I first began reading it, and though I eventually got more used to the style of the book, it still was unlike any other novel I’ve ever read. However, the element of Mumbo Jumbo that was the most bewildering for me was its usage of time. The plot of Mumbo Jumbo doesn’t exactly progress linearly, instead, it swings back and forth between the main storyline of Jes Grew in the 1920s and other points in history, such as the 1970s,  though the time spent in these different time periods is usually brief, and provides context or some connection to the 1920s story. The 52 chapters are the culmination of these time period switches, where Papa Le Bas spends two chapters recounting the history of Jes Grew and the Atonists, starting with Ancient Egyptian ...

  As I discussed in my previous blog post, a continuing theme in Ragtime is reinvention among the characters. However, this idea isn’t limited to character development in the novel. The period Doctorow writes about, the “Ragtime Era,” is known for its ushering of the world into a new, modern age. In the years before the First World War, America’s melting pot rose to a boil, with its new ideas, inventions and movements. Ragtime shows these developments by recounting events of the time period, as well as describing its characters’ experiences relating to them.  Some of the major early 1900 occurrences included in Ragtime are the growth of socialism, communism and anarchy ideas, as well as the pushback against them. Through Evelyn Nesbit and Tateh, Ragtime lets us listen in on Emma Goldman, where she expresses many of the revolutionary ideas of the period. This advancement connects to the growing number of immigrants coming to America, who are represented in Ragtime by Tateh and ...

In Ragtime, historical and fictional characters alike exist within its plot, interacting and affecting each other through unique means. Often, the collection of characters seem so different from one another that the idea of them associating or being a part of the same book makes no feasible sense. However, one connecting thread between many of the character arcs is the idea of reinvention. Despite their differences, most of Ragtime’s cast tries or wishes to start a new life or remake themselves in some way, which makes the idea of reinvention a central theme in Ragtime. One of the first examples of this theme is Evelyn Nesbit’s character. In the public eye, Evelyn is known as a sex icon, and as the central figure in the love triangle between her husband, Harry K. Thaw, and Stanford White, which results in the murder of White. While in court, Evelyn presents herself as a doting wife to Harry K. Thaw, in her interactions with Tateh and Emma Goldman, it becomes clear that her public perso...

In the story of Beloved, Sweet Home plays a central role in the “rememory” of the characters. Though at first only alluded to, the story of the Sweet Home plantation and how it relates to the current situations and behaviors of the main characters slowly unfolds throughout the book. Before the arrival of schoolteacher, Sweet Home and its owners, Mr. and Mrs. Garner, seem to have been “compassionate” towards the enslaved people that worked there. The Sweet Home men: Paul A, Paul D, Paul F, Sixo, and Halle, were known throughout the area as unique in their position as slaves because they were treated like men by Mr. Garner. He gave them a certain level of respect, and he even allowed the men to have guns, which was unheard of at the time. However, how much autonomy did the Sweet Home men truly have? Though the Sweet Home men had independence and dignity under their original owner, that does not change the fact that they were “owned.” The only reason Paul D. and his brothers had these pri...

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie desires certain ideals from her life like love and camaraderie. However, what Janie wants from her own life differs from what other people think she needs, and Nanny and Joe Stark’s ideas of the “perfect life” for Janie are deeply unsatisfying for her. Only when Janie follows her own wishes does she truly reach fulfillment, happiness and independence in her life. Nanny wants Janie to settle down with Logan Killicks, because Logan “got a house bought and paid for and sixty acres uh land right on de big road [..] and dat’s de very prong all us black women gits hung on.” Dis love!” Her idea of love and contentment for Janie is what she never got to experience as a young woman, which is being provided for by a well-off husband. Both Nanny and her daughter had their children as the result of being raped, so Nanny didn’t initially have a support system and lacked the feeling of stability. As a result, she sets up Janie with Logan Killicks in order to g...

  In Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, the motif of identity threads through the plot as the narrator struggles to understand himself and his perception of others. As he faces new environments and their unique obstacles during the story, The narrator’s idea of identity progressively becomes more faceted and complex, until he comes to a conclusion at the climax of the novel. However, what causes him to finally understand identity? To answer this question, I reflected on the role of another important motif in Invisible Man: ideology.  For the majority of the narrator’s journey, his relationship with the concept of identity is closely tied with whatever ideology his environment promotes. At the narrator’s college, Booker T Washington’s ideology of being deferential and humble to the white man represents the administrator’s views of black peoples’ role in society, which, therefore, the narrator believes as well. At this point in the novel, the narrator hasn’t deeply questioned his id...

A major theme of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is the narrator’s identity. In the story, his self perception drastically evolves through the events and circumstances he faces. Initially, the narrator tries to hide his true feelings and opinions, and expresses his identity solely based on how he wants others, specifically white people, to perceive him. He aims to please, and he doesn’t question his identity and the treatment he receives from white people. After Bledsoe’s betrayal in Chapter 9, the narrator realizes his previous role in society was as a subservient pawn, and resolves to get revenge and trek his own path. However, when he joins the Brotherhood, the narrator once again has to assume an alternate identity and exist as simply a cog in the Brotherhood, despite its progressive ideology. At this point of the novel, though the narrator has escaped the South, he has not escaped his invisibility. At the beginning of Invisible Man, the narrator doesn’t fully understand the oppressi...

When Invisible Man’s narrator retells the experiences of his past, the difference between the narrator’s current self and his past self is vast. The two of them have contrasting views of their life and aspirations. While the current narrator has discovered and accepted his “invisibility” as a black man in a racist society, in his retelling of his life, his past self does not realize his invisibility, and he believes he can make a change in the world. However, as the story progresses, the narrator starts to understand how the progress he believes himself to be making is not progress at all, but is exactly what is required of him to keep the oppressive society he lives in unchanged and balanced. In the first chapter of Invisible Man, after the narrator endures the nightmarish Battle Royale, he finally gets to read the speech he had come to the event for in the first place. In front of his town’s “leading white citizens,” he delivers his speech badly bruised and swallowing blood, still ho...

Richard Wright’s Native Son follows Bigger, a 20 year old black man living in poverty in Chicago. As Bigger is thrown into a flurry of new circumstances, Wright intricately depicts Bigger’s thoughts in real time, and as readers, we see the rationale behind Bigger’s decisions and personality. Though Bigger commits serious crimes, he still is a humanized, complex, and understandable character, due to the oppression and discrimination he faces. However, one character living in a very similar situation to Bigger gets significantly less focus than him from the characters in Native Son , as well as within the book itself. Bessie, Bigger’s lover, and eventually the victim of rape and murder by Bigger, plays an insignificant role in Bigger’s mind, and, therefore, is rarely focused on throughout Native Son . Whether intentionally or not, Richard Wright spent minimal time developing Bessie’s character, and in the novel, she is depicted as simply a byproduct. Bessie lives a life akin to Bigger’s...