Thoughts Behind...

Now, I'm not sure if this is significant or not, but after chapter 10 in Song of Solomon , this has been on my mind. When Milkman entered the cave, he was "blinded by the absence of light." This struck me because earlier in the same chapter there was mention of "the absence of light" as he entered the Butler place. I found that this phrase references "a newborn traveling through a birth canal" from the article "Signifying Circe in Toni Morrison's 'Song of Solomon.'" If this is true, that means that Milkman is starting to become a new person as he enters these dark places. In fact, we saw this new character as he realized his selfishness over what he did or didn't "deserve" in chapter 11. After he left the cave, Milkman started encountering the most threatening situations of his life. First, the brawl at the store and then the attempted murder from his lovely best friend Guitar. But going back to the first mention...

When it comes to the south and its history, you imagine either some sort of image resembling  Little House on the Praire  or slavery. Our thinking simply reflects the type of books we read. Historical southern fiction either portrays "refined, whitewashed folklore" (Sugar) or a slave's laborious and torturous living hell. We hardly see an in-between. So then what's the true story? In 1811, on the German Coast in Louisana, the largest slave uprising in U.S. history occurred. In fact, "the execution tally was nearly twice as high as the number in Nat Turner's rebellion." Then why , you may ask, have we never heard of it?  At the time, official reports of the incident described it as a band of "brigades," knowing that the reality of a well-organized slave revolt would be a threat to the institution ("How a Nearly Successful Slave Revolt Was Intentionally Lost to History"). And I have no doubts that cover-ups like this have occurred a ...

Violence. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. In most ways violence can seem very obvious because of its portrayal in movies, video games, and crime; you picture blood, weapons, and fighting. But there seem to be sources of violence that tend to be less physical.  While looking at an image of a young boy in the arms of, presumably, his father whose head was covered by a bag, it seems that most of us agreed that it isn't  a violent image. In disbelief, Mrs. Valentino exclaimed that it is actually violent. However, in my head, it came across as almost peaceful. Now, I do acknowledge the sadness of this image, but what I really saw was a boy reuniting with his father among the vastness of a desert. There was a stillness that was reflected by the picture instead of the usual chaos that physical violence entails. So what really is violence? We can almost all agree that there should be a line dra...

Stereotypes. They are generalized assumptions about a group of people like "Asians are smart," or "Americans are fat and dumb"-- statements we all know too well. And the thing with stereotypes is that they hold true to a certain extent. That's why they can be so offensive! But have you ever wondered how or why these stereotypes came to be? Jews, in particular, are often seen as frugal and even greedy, and in Maus , Spiegelman makes no attempt to hide that. Repeatedly, Spiegelman interrupts the chronology of Vladek's Holocaust account to allow Vladek to complain about his family's use of money. On page 116 of Maus I , Vladek picks up a telephone wire laying among some trash, and in response, Art becomes irritated and asks, "can't you just buy  wire?" This kind of reaction is understandable, as Vladek seems to reinforce such a negative stereotype.  What Art and most people don't realize, though, is that Vladek's experience...