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.