Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina

I think that this book has a very interesting and tragic approach to exploring child abuse, which is the focus I would like to examine. In this section of the book, chapters 11 to 18, we really get to see how damaging being abused has been to Bone’s development. I think it is essential for the story to be told from Bone’s perspective in order to see how the abuse affects her. Also, Allison’s incorporation of Bone’s thoughts in her narration of what’s occurring allows readers to see what specific events cause her to question her identity. I think that this was a very effective tool and allowed me to understand Bone despite the fact that our life experiences are so different.

Besides the obvious result of harming Bone physically, one impact of Glen’s violence and sexual violation of Bone is that her body image is harmed. In the earlier sections, we see through Bone’s repetition in her descriptions of Anney that her mother is beautiful in Bone’s eyes. Bone seems to think of herself as awkward and needing to grow into her body, and I can only imagine how damaging being sexually abused by your step-father can be when you are already insecure. Bone assesses herself to be “Probably ugly” and declares that she “didn’t want to be tall” but “wanted to be beautiful” (205). Immediately after examining herself disapprovingly, Glen worsens her self-perception by verbally abusing her, telling her he knows “what a lazy, stubborn girl” she is (209). I think it is awful that Glen tells her this, and while Glen plays a part in Bone’s perception of herself, I don’t understand why Anney doesn’t pick up on these vibes and try to tell Bone otherwise. I find it painfully ironic that Anney worries when Ruth dies that Ruth didn’t know how beautiful she was, and Anney knows that she didn’t do anything to make Ruth feel better about herself, but, at the same time, Anney doesn’t do anything to make her own daughter feel better.

In addition to feeling ugly, Glen makes Bone feel evil. She internalizes the abuse, and while half of her is angry all of the time and hating Glen and many other people, the other half of her blames herself for what occurs. It was painful to read about her feeling either way. I thought the most tragic scene in this section was when Bone’s abuse is exposed at Ruth’s funeral. Bone tries to prevent the exposé and immediately shouts, “Mama! I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” and even, “I made him mad. I did” (246-7). These words show that Bone really felt that she was bad and deserving of Glen’s wrath. Any child feeling that way is terrible. Only Raylene has the right idea, explaining to her that it was not her fault. I think the main reason that Bone never told on Glen for his sexual abuse was because she was worried her mom would not choose her over Glen. I bet she wouldn’t have, since she kept sending Bone away rather than leaving Glen before her family became aware of the abuse. Anney, while I do believe loves Bone, is a terribly weak person. She is so much like A Streetcar Named Desire’s Stella. Both are so deeply in love with their husbands and so driven by sex that they can no longer think for themselves. Bone can see her mother’s attachment, and rather than hurting her mom and also risking being sent away permanently, keeps silent through such horrific abuse. I wonder if Stella’s child will grow up similarly. Blanche must have felt that Stella would do the right thing, which is why she exposed Stanley’s violent act, but she was wrong and got sent away. Bone is apparently a better judge of character and somehow knew not to speak up or she would lose her place in the family.

Even when Anney leaves Glen after her family becomes aware of the abuse, she still does not take good care of Bone, and Bone thinks Anney will eventually go back to Glen. I was disturbed by Anney placing her shock and emotional trauma over Bone’s needs and feelings. Bone longs for her mother to hold her but writes, “I knew from the way she was touching me that if I had not come to her, pushed myself on her, she would never have taken me into her arms” (252). While Anney did go through a life-altering event, too, I think she should be trying to comfort Bone and showing her that she does still love and care about her. I feel so unsympathetic for Anney and wonder when Bone will finally get a parent or guardian who shows her unconditional love and will help her seize the potential she has for a good life. Bone, though she has a huge family, is very alone right now because the person who matters the most to her does not show Bone how valuable she is, and, accordingly, Bone has very low self-esteem.

Dickey's poetry-Take Two: The Sheep Child

After our discussions about some of Dickey’s poetry, I feel that many of us, including myself, may have over-analyzed his works. We were creating symbols when the story lines were actually fairly straight forward and were trying to make the poems about race relations because many of the Southern works we explored were about race. For example, I thought The Heaven of Animals, while applying to animals, was also possibly a metaphor for African Americans and whites. However, now that I know Dickey was not African American or a race activist, I see his poems from a different light. Also, Walking on Water had confused me very much because I again thought that the boy’s movement on the water was symbolic and metaphorical, when in actuality he was gliding on a plank. He did have a spiritual experience, but I needed a more literal approach to the poem.

So, now as I look at The Sheep Child for a second time, I am thinking that maybe the sheep child is not a metaphor for something but is actually a creature that is half sheep and half human. And that’s disgusting.

Dickey starts out explaining something from the past, and he uses the split-line form that we discussed him using in Falling. This caused me to make abrupt halts when reading it and gave the sense that what I was reading about was a taboo subject and sort of unspeakable. It seemed as though the narrator was having a difficult time explaining the scenario and was choosing his or her words carefully. Yet the message is seemingly that farm boys have a strong sexual desire to have sex or sex-like relations with just about anything. This is a stereotype I have heard about adolescent farmers; they have prolific sex, which explains the stereotypical abundance of bare-foot red-neck children.

In stanza two, Dickey continues explaining and setting the scene, revealing that there is one example of what happens when a man mates with a sheep. There is a sheep child that is preserved in a museum because it did not survive. While creating even a stillbirth sheep child seems highly improbable or impossible, it is an interesting and grotesque thought. The line, “his eyes / Are open but you can’t stand to look,” caught my attention because it expressed a sad sentiment that I imagine would characterize the life of a creature such as this if it could survive. The openness of the eyes indicates to me that the sheep child is longing for attention, but no one can look at it because it is such a shameful and disgusting creature. The creation is isolated.

The next stanza expresses that the events of this poem are something from the past; there is a sense of nostalgia, like with the dying out of the Old South. The farm boys who once tried to mate with sheep now have “true wives” that are humans and logical partners, unlike the sheep, and have taken their women to the city. However, the sheep child still exists and again is talking through its eyes. Dickey then switches to the voice of the sheep child, indicated by his switch to italics.

In the words of the sheep, there are repeated phrases indicating the emotionally taxing nature of being the product of two different environments. First he explains that he is “half of [his father’s] world” but came into the world in the “long grass” that belonged to his sheep mother. Later a striking image is created as the sheep child says, “My hoof and my hand clasped each other,” and readers really get the sense of how unnatural this creation is. Even though I do not think that the sheep child is necessarily a metaphor for how biracial children may feel, this poem did remind me of Frederick Douglass’ account of how slaves who were fathered by their white masters felt. These children did not really fit in anywhere and were treated worse by the whites since they were the product of a scandalous affair. The sheep child had no real place either and was also the product of a scandal.

I also think that the sheep child’s words evoke great emotion and pity. He identifies with his mother’s fearfulness in “Listening for foxes” or danger. He also feels his mothers burden in giving birth “as she must do” since she has no control over the matter. The mother is sobbing as she gives birth and the sheep child enters the world and dies. The death of the sheep child also is repeated in his account of his life, probably because that is the essence of his life. I think the most heart-wrenching line is, “I ate my one meal / Of milk, and died / Staring,” because again the sheep child is searching for his place, for someone to accept and love him. However, he never finds it and dies still searching.

The end of the poem suggests that the sheep child’s existence haunts farm boys and prevents them from having sex with animals. He lives on in their minds and, “drives / Them like wolves from the hound bitch and calf / And from the chaste ewe.” A ewe is a sheep and by describing it as chaste, it seems as though the sheep child feels as though it was fully the human’s fault for creating the sheep child. This poem seems to show that humans need to be responsible and emphasizes that there are fundamental differences between animals and humans. They are not meant to procreate together, and I find it ironic that the sheep child seems more thoughtful than the human farm boys. This poem portrays the relationship of animals and humans very differently than Dickey’s other ones, such as A Dog Sleeping on My Feet and Walking on Water, where they coexist amicably or even symbiotically. The Sheep Child essentially seems to say that there are limitations to they types of relationships humans and animals should have.

James Dickey's A Dog Sleeping on My Feet

This poem interested me because of the symbiotic relationship of the man and the dog. While we expect man and dog to coexist amicably, hence the dog’s nickname “man’s best friend,” this poem takes a different turn. The man allows the dog to sleep on his feet because the dog is evidently his muse. The lines “The poem is beginning to move / Up through my pine-prickling legs / …Taking hold of the pen by my fingers” indicate that the inspiration for the emerging poetry is coming from the dog because the motivation is traveling up the man’s legs from whence the dog rests. Also, there are repeated words that show the man is feeling the weight of the dog, possibly causing his feet and legs to be falling asleep. For example, the writer’s “feet beneath him [are] dying like embers” because of the pressure. Also, the poet’s legs are “pine-prickling,” there is a “dazzle of nails through the ankles,” there is a reference to “pins,” and finally the poet again mentions his “killed legs.” All of these references to the dog causing the man’s feet and legs to feel pressure that take place throughout the poetic scenes indicate that the dog is the source of the man’s poetry.

It seems to me like the dog’s spirits takes over the man’s because the writer now seems to be a dog on a chase, pursuing a fox. Images from Disney’s The Fox and the Hound came to my mind. I think the tone goes from calm, when the man is sitting with his notebook and trying not to move and wake the dog, to urgent when the dog’s spirit comes to life and the hunt starts. “All, all are running” and the fox is described as “flying,” so a lot of motion is felt, and the very essence of a hunt is an urgent one. The fox runs for its life, and the dog instinctually pursues to kill, putting all of its energy towards that goal. Abruptly, the tone again changes to calmness as the setting of the poetry jumps out of the chase and back to the man who is “Stock-still” so as not to wake the dog and lose his ability to perceive the chase. Then the chase’s urgency is felt again but at last fizzles out as “the dog gets up and goes out / To wander the dawning yard.” I think the poet is saddened in a way by the dog’s departure because he can no longer write from the dog’s perspective. His hand “Shall falter, and fail / Back into the human tongue” because the dog got up. It is interesting to me also that he considers his writing ability to be failing when it is only able to speak as humans do. This is the true sign of a poet. He wants to be able to speak as the dog, the subject of his poem.

However, it seems that the man uses the dog for more than just fodder to write about. When the man goes to bed, he still thinks about the places the dog took him and seemingly really enjoys it. He smiles as he smells the fox. The last line of the poem, “Sleeping to grow back my legs” seems to reference the dog again, as the dog’s weight was what immobilized the man’s legs temporarily. The poet seems sad but accepting that he must go back to the way his family expects him to be; he must return to being a man the next day and embody the dog anymore. I was intrigued by the notion of the man seemingly not just trying to write from the dog’s perspective but actually preferring the lifestyle of the dog because I think that most people think humans have the most desirable lives.

A Streetcar Named Desire: Play versus Film

I think that the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire, while operating on predominantly the same script as Tennessee Williams’ play version, left me with a very different impression than I had received from reading the play.

Though Stanley is certainly a disgusting character at times, eating brazenly with his fingers, his film depiction, to me, gave him some redeeming qualities. For example, in the movie, Stella and Stanley’s relationship’s only positive attribute was seemingly their sex life. Stella even says, “there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark—that sort of make everything else seem—unimportant” (657). This quote shows her view that sex makes up for any other shortcomings of a relationship, and her marriage was full of shortcomings. However, in the movie, I thought that Stanley was rather nice and sympathetic to Stella at times. Though his voice rises when talking about the Napoleonic code, when he realizes that he is overwhelming Stella, he calms down and speaks sweetly to her.

Stanley is not always yelling and does typically start out discussing matters calmly. It seems as though most incidents in which he starts yelling or fighting were provoked by Stella or Blanche. In Stella’s case, she physically fights back a couple of times, like when Stanley rummages through Blanche’s trunk, which riles him further. Moreover, when Stella hears that Stanley ruined Blanche’s chances of getting Mitch to marry her, she even starts a physical fight with him. This greatly contrasts from the play’s depiction of Stanley always being the aggressor who takes his misplaced anger out on his defenseless wife. There is no mention in scene seven, when Stanley reveals Blanche’s secrets, of Stella fighting Stanley. The movie shows that they have a two-sided physical relationship that is both violent and sexual by both participants.

In addition to Stella’s provocation, Blanche also antagonizes Stanley. The visual representation of Blanche makes her likeness to a moth come to life. She is seemingly constantly flitting about the room. For instance, consider Stanley and Blanche’s meeting. He is so calm and still, which makes her motion all the more noticeable and bizarre. She is nervous around him, trying to flirt and get some indication that her flirtation is requited. Blanche even clutches him when a cat startles her. However, he remains relaxed and confident until finally he can no longer stand her antics and yells at her in a later conversation to “cut the re-bop.”

The building up to the rape is much more evident in this version. Stanley seems like a very hot-and-cold person. He will be content, and then Blanche starts larking about irritatingly and he snaps. Then he calms later, but the issues have never truly been resolved. Blanche is still seemingly mentally unstable. Her roaming and seemingly growing eyes reveal that she is greatly distressed by her memories, and hearing the music that is only in her head works wonders to convince the audience that she needed psychiatric help even before the rape. When Stanley returns from the hospital to see Blanche talking to herself and wearing a tiara, it seems like she is no longer saving face (as we had assessed in class based on the play) by lying about Shep Huntleigh’s invitation. Instead, her mental instability is apparent.

To Stanley, not recognizing Blanche’s mental illness, all of her trickery, degrading remarks, and unwanted flirtation have culminated in her deserving the rape to end their conflicts and put her in her place. To the audience, we still obviously feel that Stanley was wrong to rape his wife’s sister. Thus, while I said he was depicted as a more redeeming character, this final act still does warrant his wife leaving him. I was very glad that the ending turned out this way because I think it changes the statement this version of A Streetcar Named Desire makes. The play, in my opinion, indicates that marriage is a false institution wrapped around social norms and sex but not love or respect. Another possible message from the play is that women are dependent on men, since Stella chooses to stay with Stanley because she seemingly cannot venture out on her own and adequately provide for herself. This film, however, empowers women and shows that domestic violence is wrong. Stella does not allow her baby or herself to be endangered any more.

Streetcar conclusions

In my first post on A Streetcar Named Desire, written when I had only read the first half of the play, I wrestled with Tennessee William’s feelings on domestic violence. I was uncertain as to whether he was against it, as he had Blanche vocalizing opposition to the violence, or whether he saw the romanticism to it and accepted it as a part of life typical of Streetcar’s setting and time period, since he portrayed Blanche as such an eccentric character throughout the play. Perhaps her hysteric reaction to Stanley’s violence towards Stella was supposed to be regarded as another example of her not understanding the modern, industrialized society of New Orleans and of her being a flighty character.

Now after completing the play, I have at least solidified my interpretation of William’s feelings regarding the subject, although I would like to hear other people’s interpretations. I think that for the most part Williams is showing how destructive violence can be. Stanley represents masculine power and animalistic desire, and, as we discussed in class, much of the play shows the competition between his ideals and those of Blanche’s. She cherishes illusion, romance, and culture. There are some victories for Blanche, such as the simple act of Stella allowing Blanche to remain in her home though it displeases Stanley, and some for Stanley, such as Stella returning to him after their domestic dispute following the poker game, and tensions build between Stanley and Blanche. As in any war, there needs to be a final showdown. This occurs when Stanley rapes Blanche the night Stella gives birth. I think that, as the final battle ends a war, this final monumental encounter between the two opponents reveals Williams’ line of thinking.

Stanley’s violent act crushes Blanche. She is clearly afraid of him after the incident. When she is exiting the bathroom, she asks, “Is the coast clear?” (686), peering around, because she does not want to have to walk by Stanley ever again. Blanche is also being taken to a mental institution. This outcome could be seen as Williams representing Stanley’s way of life dominating over Blanche’s, particularly because Stella deems Stanley the winner of their competition by choosing to stay with him and not believe Blanche’s story. However, I think that Blanche is supposed to be a sympathetic character, which I had overlooked in reading the first half of this play, rendering her destruction by Stanley a cruel and vicious act.

Though Blanche is flawed, as I pointed out in my first post, she is very desperate. She explains the trauma she went through to Mitch, watching each of her family members die. “Death—I used to sit here and she used to sit over there and death was as close as you are…” (680). She was driven to her sexual indecency by her experiences with death, including Allan’s, because Blanche views “desire” as the opposite of death (680). Readers can thus sense her desperation and need to feel alive. We can also see her emotional turmoil regarding Allan’s suicide through Williams’ use of expressionism through the polka music that runs through her head. This music signals that she is being haunted by remembrances of Allan since the same music played at the scene of his death.

Besides being desperate, Blanche is also a well-intentioned person. Though she lies about her past, she explains to Mitch that she “didn’t lie in [her] heart” (679). Readers can infer that the reason she did not explain her sexual past was because she feared being ostracized and not because she wanted to deceive him. Mitch’s declaration that she’s “not clean enough to bring in the house with [his] mother” upon finding out the truth shows that Blanche’s worries were justified. Blanche’s predicament is similar to Calixta’s in Kate Chopin’s At the ‘Cadian Ball in that both are the source of town gossip for their sexual affairs. Although Blanche is of a higher class, both are not accepted by mainstream society because their being sexually active out of wedlock went against codes of conduct for women.

Since Blanche is a sympathetic character, Stanley’s act is supposed to be viewed as horribly wrong. Stella, during Blanche’s departure, cries out, “What have I done to my sister?” (689), which I think indicates that deep down she knows Blanche was right about Stanley. This is why Stella is now plagued by a guilty conscience. Not only did Blanche not manifest the rape, but she, not Stella, had the right idea about violence. It is wrong in all cases because left unchecked it can escalate, as Stanley’s slapping around Stella turned into his rape of Blanche. Though Williams presents violence as having some romantic elements, particularly shown by Stella and Stanley’s sensual make-up scene after the poker game, I think the final scenes express his view that sexual violence is predominantly wrong and can easily escalate to completely unacceptable acts.

Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire

This play deals with many themes that we have seen before in other works of Southern literature. A few of them that I’d like to discuss are presentations of masculinity, female sexuality, interactions between the genders, and class conflict. Stanley is the epitome of what a male is supposed to be according to the prescribed gender roles we’ve discussed, “strongly, compactly built” (639), skilled at sexually pleasing women, and often described as having animal-like behaviors and intentions. His character reminded me of Faulkner’s character McLendon from Dry September. Both are described as strong and sweating and are supposed to be examples of masculinity, yet both achieve much of their power by keeping their wives submissive through force. By each of these characters being wife-beaters, the seemingly inherent nature of their male dominance is undermined. Since the hypocrisy of their power is revealed by the authors, it seems for Streetcar that Williams does not approve of the domestic violence that was occurring.

Yet Tennessee Williams’ depictions of women make me uncertain of his intentions with this work. His depiction of Blanche relates and intrigued me the most. She is clearly a flawed character, lying about her age and drinking. Blanche is also needy, constantly desiring male attention. For example, during the poker game in scene three she steps into the light between the two rooms in Stella and Stanley’s house so the men can see her shape as she undresses. Also, there is some uncertainty surrounding how Blanche lost Belle Reve, her presence at Hotel Flamingo, where she stayed the night of Stella and Stanley’s fight, and why she is no longer teaching. I think that her comment to the paper boy, whom she also inappropriately kisses, “I’ve got to be good—and keep my hands off children,” (663) may indicate that she has had some inappropriate relations with her high school students. Blanche also is very snobby, criticizing her sister’s living arrangements because they grew up on a plantation and are of a higher class of the dying Old South than Stanley and the others in this section of New Orleans. Each of these incidents and uncertainties add up to Blanche being a very troubled character. Yet she is the one expressing disapproval of the violent way Stanley treats his pregnant wife, Stella.

Stella, who is presented as the more level-headed woman who becomes disturbed by Blanche’s dramatic shrieking, is content with Stanley. She is a very sexual character who is “thrilled by” Stanley’s throwing things about (654). Her comments romanticize violence, and thus Williams’ portrayal of domestic violence is seemingly conflicting. As I explained before, a deeper look into Stanley’s presentation could indicate that Williams is criticizing his violence. Yet William’s choosing Blanche, who is erratic and unmarried, to be the one who disapproves of the rough treatment and Stella, who is nurturing and married, to be the one who does not mind it indicates a diverging perspective, in my opinion. This choice makes it seem like women who have a healthy sexual appetite will not mind being physically abused by their husbands because “things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark…make everything else seem—unimportant” (657), according to Stella. I hope that as the rest of the play unfolds, Williams portrayal of gender roles will more definitively show that domestic violence is something that needs to stop and that the way this town proceeds, with men hitting their wives and the wives easily forgiving them, is unacceptable.

Race Relations

Though Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston were writing in similar time periods as black residents of the South, their accounts differed greatly. Wright wrote to advocate change. He detailed the horrific effects of the Jim Crow laws on the lives of African Americans. Not only were blacks often abused, but they were internalizing the laws and becoming submissive to whites. His style in The Ethics of Living Jim Crow is to include short reports of black mistreatment, each followed by the reaction of other blacks that the mistreated were “lucky” (552) because they were not raped or killed. Wright is trying to prod others to realize that the Jim Crow laws are wrong, should not be accepted, and instead should be fought.

His presentation of whites as abusers and the biting irony at the end of most of the short stories reveals that he resents most whites for their treatment of blacks. Hurston, on the contrary, does not show hostility towards blacks or a lack of black pride in How It Feels to Be Colored Me. I think this is because she has many identities and is not consumed by notions of race. She is “the eternal feminine” (418), “an American citizen” (418), “Zora of Eatoniville” (417), and “colored” (417), but she also says that sometimes she has “no race” (418) and is just her. I think the possession of a multitude of identities is a healthy way for Zora to look at herself. Also, the last paragraph of this piece reveals that she views all people as essentially the same inside through her bag analogy. Thus she does not look at blacks and whites as fully separate entities, although jazz certainly seems to affect her much more potently than it affects whites.

I think that the reason behind the disparity of Wright’s and Hurston’s feelings is because of their childhood. Wright grew up fearing whites because of an experience where white children threw broken bottles at him and some other black children. He began regarding “white folks” and their green, well-kempt neighborhoods as a “symbol of fear” (549). However, Hurston lived in town populated almost entirely by blacks, Eatonville, Florida. Whites would only occasionally pass through the town, and she would joyfully entertain them. She did not recognize the condescending nature with which the whites tossed “small silver” to her in order for her to “dance the parse-me-la” (416), and by the time she went to school in Jacksonville at age thirteen, much of her identity must have already been firmly planted. Although she then became “a little colored girl” for the first time (416), Hurston clearly retained a great spirit because this piece is uplifting and presents the issue of race open-mindedly. Though she addresses race, it is not to instigate change or point out racial problems, as Wright’s intention is. Her piece is not the work of someone beaten down. She must not have encountered such brutality as Wright or at least certainly did not let it affect her sense of self.

I thought it was interesting that some of Zora is reflected in Janie, the storyteller in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Janie, too, did not realize that she was black right away. It took her until she was only six, though, to see a picture of herself and make the connection. Also, Janie is frequently described as a beautiful female with long black hair, and Zora felt femininity was an important part of her identity.

I also found it interesting how many similar occurrences took place in the first fifty pages of this book about black characters as in other works that were about white characters that we have read. The town members gather to as Janie comes home and in the flashback where Joe is at the store in Eatonville. This gossiping took place in Faulkner’s works too. Also, the women disapprove of Janie wearing overalls, just as the women in Porter’s stories disapprove of Miranda wearing pants. Janie’s grandmother also tries to control her life by marrying her off to Logan, much like the grandmother presented by Porter tries to control each of her children and grandchildren’s lives. Finally, this story also deals with coming of age, like Faulkner’s Barn Burning, his An Odor of Verbena, and several of Porter’s short stories. Here Janie explores her sensuality through nature under a pear tree, watching bees pollinate flowers, much like Porter’s character Miranda learned something about sex by seeing the gutted, pregnant rabbit. Right after, Janie experiences her first kiss and is soon thereafter married. She is a woman. I am interested to see how many other similar events will occur as the story unfolds further.