Meagan Anthony

Meagan Anthony- Web Review

Juan Garcia

            I was drawn to this essay because it is consistent and well thought out.  Juan discussed the struggle between the ideas of resistance and assimilation in the black community.  He uses Song of Solomon to support his thesis by showing the reader the difficulty between assimilation and resistance in the character of Macon Dead, “Macon came to represent the side of assimilation, attempting to be part of the dominant social order, to succeed in business and provide opportunities for his family.  He creates a successful real estate business, and in the process alienates the African Americans around him.”  The question seems to be how do you assimilate, in order to become successful, without undermining those in your community who have not assimilated. 

            He also points to Pilate’s involvement at the jail as an act of assimilation, “It was because it degraded her, that it worked though.  The police only saw a sad old woman, and any other behavior would only have complicated the situation.”  I would disagree and say that Pilate’s “Aunt Jemina” act was an act of resistance by manipulating known stereotypes.  The situation wasn’t degrading to her it was degrading to the officers.  She was playing on their ignorance and they were just too ignorant to realize it.

Mallory Rogers

            This essay was interesting because it was different from many of the other essays.  Mallory focused on the legal aspect of discrimination against the black community.  She begins with an example from Song of Solomon that highlights her thesis, “Chapter six of Song of Solomon, Guitar says, ‘There are places right now where a Negro still can’t testify against a white man… Where the judges, the jury, the court, are legally bound to ignore anything a Negro has to say.’ (176) Taking this statement as the basis for his account, Guitar rants about the injustices Africans Americans face daily explaining to Milkman the reasoning behind the formation of the group Seven Days.”  She describes well how the legal system leaves the black community behind.  This makes it impossible for the community to get justice unless they seek it outside of the law. 

            Mallory then explores the idea that the legal system didn’t even give blacks the rights to their own lives, “the strongest example of the law hindering Linda’s ability to live the ‘American Dream’ is in the concluding chapters of the narrative, where Linda finds herself a fugitive hiding in the shed’s pent roof from her Master.  As a slave, Linda didn’t have the legal right to her freedom so she didn’t have the freedom to run away to what she deemed a better life.”  Because slaves were owned by others, they had only two choices in life, put up with being a slave or run and hide, always looking behind your back for someone coming to get you. 

            The ending section of Mallory’s essay is very confusing.  She ends by asking a question, is literacy a curse or empowerment?  While a valid question it doesn’t relate to the rest of the essay, which was about the legal woes of the African American community.  It was an unfortunate weak spot in an overall well written essay.

Rosalinda Ortiz

I chose this essay because it raises an interesting question, is knowledge a positive or negative?  Rosalinda gives the reader examples for both sides of the argument.  She points to Douglass’s text while arguing that literacy may not be a positive thing, “They learned that the life they were leading was not the way things should be.  The treatment they received was inhumane punishment for a crime they never committed.  They would not have learned this had they not been taught to read and write.”  Here she seems to be arguing that perhaps ignorance is bliss. 

She then moves to Song of Solomon and shows how illiteracy can be an evil of itself, “Lacking the knowledge that is required to make any form of transactions becomes a benefit to a literate person, as opposed to someone who is illiterate.  The illiterate person becomes very vulnerable and weak, mentally.  Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison contained the prime example of someone that receives the shorter end of the stick due to his lack of literacy.  Macon Dead, Sr. did not know how to read and in the end it leads to him losing everything he owned.”  Mallory argues that while ignorance may be bliss it is also still ignorance and that can put you at a disadvantage.  Mallory ends by saying that we can’t be sure which is better, ignorance or knowledge.  Personally I feel that is a bit of a stretch.  While literacy brings with it knowledge of pain and ideas that are difficult to deal with, illiteracy gives nothing except ignorance, which doesn’t change the fact that you’re a slave.  Even if you can’t read you still know that a whip hurts, not reading doesn’t change that. 

Meagan Anthony- Essay

Giving Voice to the Voiceless

            The genre of minority literature is vast and diverse.  The term “minority” is so broad and overarching; it includes women, Hispanics, gays, African Americans, etc.  It is difficult to extract from the hoard of written works a cohesive meaning or goal.  Yet one theme does reach out from the pages of all the literature and that is the idea of the voice of the minority.  The minority is silenced in many ways, even just by the fact that there are less people to speak for them.  The act of writing a minority narrative is a direct solution for giving voice back to the voiceless.

            In Song of Solomon Morrison shows the reader both the voicelessness and the voice of the black community.  Guitar explains to Milkman how a black man won’t be listened to in a court of law, surrounded by a white judge and jury.  This voicelessness is then used to bring about the solution of the Seven Days.  This is a gruesome and violent voice but a voice nonetheless, telling the white community that the black man will no longer sit idly by while the white man violates the black community.

            Morrison also shows the reader individual voice in the novel.  Macon is voiceless before Milkman hits him.  Milkman acts on his own perceived ideas of what is real and true.  It is after the violence that Morrison gives Macon his voice with his story of his and Ruth’s marriage, and later his story of his life with Pilate.  Morrison also shows the double voicelessness of women in the character of Ruth.  Macon is able to tell Milkman disturbing things about Ruth, and it is not until later in the novel that Ruth is able to give voice to her own story.  However, in the end, whether good or bad, everyone has been able to lend their voice to the narrative of Song of Solomon.

            In Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl the reader is shown voluntary voicelessness and non-voluntary.  The narrator of the story is forced, by the mere fact that she is black, into voicelessness about the fact that her owner is sexually and physically harassing her.  She is unable to tell the other members of the white community because it would make no difference.  When the act of violence against a person is legal, then even voice becomes voiceless when there is no justice to come.  The girl is also made voiceless in her own community.  She is unable to speak to her grandmother about the abuse and harassment out of fear of the grandmother’s reaction.  The actions of the white man have cut off the narrator’s voice, from even her community, and have transferred the shame, which he should feel, to the girl being harassed.  The girl is finally given a voice by speaking to the grandmother and the mistress of the house, but in this final instance the reader gets the impression that the willingness to hear the girl is less from concern and more from personal interest on the mistress’s part.

            The poem “An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, With Penitential Cries” is one of the most clear instances of giving voice back to the black community.  Not only is writing, in itself, a way of giving voice back to the community, but Hammon is giving a voice to his people directed at God.  The poem is from the “dark benighted Souls” and is reaching out in prayer to God to save them.  Hammon not only establishes a voice to God but he claims God for the black community, calling him “our King.”  Hammon also uses his own voice to give voice to God himself (16.1-16.4).  The God of the white man has been reclaimed for the black community.  The voice of justice will ring out, if not in this life, than in the afterlife.

            The previous examples have all been from black minority literature, but there is another minority community that has been represented in class, the American colonies.  The people of the colonies were abused and treated as lesser than the British people.  They were not given a voice in Government, much like the black community.  When they tried to fight back they were killed and imprisoned.  The Declaration of Independence was America’s first piece of minority literature.  Not only was the Declaration addressed to the majority community, it was also to show the rest of the world that the American colonies had a voice and were speaking out against injustice.  The Declaration also allowed the colonies to come together and create one united voice, tying them together in strength and purpose. 

            Each of these texts gives a voice to a minority, whether it’s an individual in a story, Ruth, or a community, Guitar.  The voice is sometimes directed at the majority community, Life of a Slave Girl, or even directed at God, “An Evening Thought.”  Whichever external entity is directed to read the text, the most important community the text is directed to is the textually represented community, in most of these texts that would be the black community.  By writing slave narratives and the stories of the black community, the community itself is able to see that voice is possible.  By writing Hammon, Morrison and Jacobs told the community that, our thoughts our words are valid, the voice of the black community was strengthened by the simple act of writing down the stories and solidifying them in print.  The voicelessness of the minority community is not solved by the creation of literature, but the knowledge that voice can be created and dispersed adds strength to the community.

Meagan Anthony- Research Plan

            I am interested in a topic which was brought up in passing during class, but is a topic I have questioned personally for years:  The increased negative regard for the GLBT community in minority communities, as compared to the majority.  I always thought that since the black community understands what it is like to be the victim of prejudice that they would be more sympathetic to the plight of the GLBT community.  However, being around the queer community for years I see that is not the case.  I’m not sure how literary this research will end up, but it is something that I would like to look into and investigate.

            I came across the image of water polishing a rock several times in Love Medicine and interestingly the image was negative.  The idea of polishing and refinement was unwanted, like a loss of individuality or a wearing away into death.  I would like to investigate if this image comes up more in Native American literature or if it is just this novel.  Perhaps it is even an idea found in other minority literature.

            Because of my split focus I will probably do the two research posts.  However, I am also a creative writer.  I come from the Writer’s Workshop at the University of Iowa and have a varied background in poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction writing.  It would be interesting to meld my interests into one creative piece.