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Reed’s Lampoons

As discussed in class, chapter 26 of Mumbo Jumbo has Reed go on a tangent of sorts, spending about a page discussing the objects on Abdul’s desk. While its inclusion in the story may seem random and not bearing any significance to the story, I found that it provides the reader with the tools to make a simple connection: while the white colonists are the subject of the African’s lampoons, the Wallflower Order, and really anyone of the white race in Mumbo Jumbo , act as Reed’s lampoons. This connection makes even more sense when you consider the book itself as a work of art, satirizing in the same manner as the Africans. In fact, Reed himself points out how the African race “had quite a sense of humor,” which was lacking in modern African-American works (Reed 96). It makes sense that Reed wants to use his book as a way to bring back the original African style of art, using irony and satire to make profound points, so he does so in Mumbo Jumbo by targeting the Wallflower Order, and to an...
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Tateh’s “Transformation”?

The Tateh we see by the end of Ragtime appears to be a very different man from how he was when Evelyn Nesbit visited him and his daughter in the Lower East Side. As readers, we are supposed to think that Tateh has overcome all his misfortunes, and that he is one of the few cases of a character having a “good ending” in Ragtime . In fact, it seems almost silly to question whether he has truly changed, for his personality seems to have taken a complete 180 and his appearance is completely unrecognizable. Consider page 254, where we are introduced to Tateh, now known as the “Baron Ashkenazy,” who is described as a “small, limber man who wore jodhpurs and a white silk shirt open at the neck” with “shining black hair”. Compared to when we first saw him as a “frail” and “white-haired” man, he has fundamentally altered himself, at least physically (48). However, these actions that he had taken to transform himself are by definition surface level, and essentially act as a coverup for what he t...
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Everything from here on is History as Fiction

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Black Culture for the Sag Harbor Boys

  Throughout Sag Harbor , we see Benji at odds with his friends over his interests and beliefs. Specifically, they see Benji as sympathetic towards, and in some cases favoring. white culture over black culture, which they find to be unacceptable. Interestingly, all the boys live 9 months of their lives every year amongst white people, and yet almost everyone but Benji seems to exaggerate their dislike towards white culture. Their overblown dislike towards white culture is almost like an attempt to prove to themselves that they, like “normal” black kids, are a part of black culture. Two such instances of the boys trying to prove their loyalty towards black culture are when Martine patted Benji’s hair and when the boys were arguing over Afrika Bambaataa.   Martine’s patting of Benji’s hair was not only awkward for Benji, but also raised the question of racism in Jonni Waffle. This was because even though Martine appeared to be black, there was still a debate among the boys ...
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Jason and The Gypsy Mentality

          By the end of Black Swan Green , we see that Jason has transformed into a completely different person compared to how he was at the beginning of the book, when he was about a year younger. His transition into a braver and less self conscious teenager can be attributed to a variety of experiences he underwent, but the one that stood out the most to me was his interactions with the Gypsies. When Jason is among the gypsies, he sees their cool and calm mannerisms and realizes the absurdities of his own everyday challenges with bullying. As a result of this, Jason ends up adopting some of their mannerisms in order to defend himself against his bullies, which ultimately ends in Jason being freed from them and gaining more self confidence.      When Jason first met the gypsies in the forest, he notes how the gypsy kids were “wilder and way harder” than the kids at his school, including Ross Wilcox. He then goes on to elaborate that things ...
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Helen Lives In Esther's Nightmare

  Helen is a woman of many talents, and yet we are introduced to her in a state far beyond her prime. In every panel we see of her, we can see the visible signs of her aging state, such as her eyebags and sad eyes. Yet it seems strange that a woman of such potential would fall to such a position, essentially becoming a housewife satisfying her disloyal husband, and not take action to improve her life. This lifestyle of submission reminded me of what Esther in The Bell Jar dreaded as a potential future for herself, living as a housewife for Buddy Willard. I thus decided to look deeper into how Helen, who much like Esther was very skilled at her craft, ended up in this position, as I wanted to see if Esther was following a similar path as her. I find the narration of Helen’s past in Chapter 3 to be a strong example of how Helen changed as a result of her following the path Esther wishes to avoid, which is that of a housewife. On page 69 (at least on my copy), we can see Helen lookin...
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Why Esther Hates Joan

Why Esther Hates Joan When first reading about Joan, many of us likely noticed the many similarities between her and Esther: they both are highly educated young women among elites who ended up “going crazy” as a result of the world around them, and they both attempted suicide to relieve them from their issues with the world, to name a few. But surprisingly, we see that Esther dislikes being in Joan’s company and fails to connect to her, even though the two are quite similar. Esther claims that she dislikes Joan for being the “being double of [her] old best self,” though I personally find this to be only part of her dislike towards her (231). Esther’s uneasiness around Joan, which in part led to her dislike towards her, started from when Joan explained how she ended up in the asylum. After hearing the story, Esther asks if Joan is “all right now” (225). We haven’t seen Esther ever be concerned in the health of others, and this all comes after Joan explains that Esther inspired her attem...
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