Inventory of lessons from novels

Two of our last three novels have featured an author (Morrison’s Jazz and Silko’s Ceremony) writing about a time, or rather an “experience” that they didn’t live through.  Our in class discussions have showed how a persons experience, at least as it is able to be revealed through first person narration, is limited to the actions that directly affect that person. (ie can’t relate anything they don’t see)  Perhaps what makes each of these novels so good is that they are not constrained by the someone’s actual experience; instead, the narrators are given the freedom to experience anything someone living during this time may have experienced.  In other words, Silko allows Tayo to embody every problem faced by Laguna war veterans, instead of having his “experience” be constrained to what happened to a real person.

Silko weaves traditional Laguna myths and poems into Ceremony to help the reader understand more about this lifestyle.  Each of the myths that Silko uses explains a different part of the Laguna heritage, and how the Laguna people used these myths to explain their different trials and tribulations, such as drought.  These myths were necessary to the novel because in that they bridged the connection between new and traditional Laguna life, both for the reader and for the novels protaginist Tayo.

Experiencing “freedom”

Option 1

For this post, I will discuss how “freedom” is experienced as a mode of belief in the book Jazz. In Jazz, Morrison shows us what it means to be a free “white” man in post antebellum Virginia at the turn of the 20th century.  This post will address Golden Gray’s experience, unique in the fact that Golden is able to be free in his simple ignorance of his true origin, yet mired with the knowledge of his true father.  Golden Gray’s life began with his mother, Vera Louise Gray, the daughter of the wealthy Colonel Wordsworth Gray, and Henry LesTroy, a family slave consummating Golden in the woods on one of Vera Louise’s horseback rides.  The colonel, having lost all love with Vera after the incident, throws her to the world where she settles in Baltimore, biracial baby Golden on the way.  Morrison writes of Vera’s mother that “only breeding, careful breeding, did not allow her to spit [on Vera]“.  Golden was never truly in jeopardy of being a slave for two reasons; first, Baltimore was in the Union and second, Golden was born with a very light complexion and fair, blonde hair, giving every indication that he was fully Caucasian.  Freedom for a man of black descent in this period is a dual perception, both of how others view and treat you and how you regard and respect yourself.  Morrison shows how prevalent racism and “belief” about skin tones and nationalities are when Vera describes Golden’s father as “a blacked-skinned nigger”.  Although I am unable to find the quote, Vera also looked on Golden not with love, but with a curiosity about the origin of his blonde hair.

This is why I describe Golden Gray’s freedom as a form of belief; although unchanged, Golden’s status in the world hangs in the balance depending on how he chooses to embrace his heritage, or his personal “beliefs” about his place and self-worth.  Was Golden Gray a “free” man?  He was not forced to work in the fields under a white master, nor was he even ever able to be visually judged by his peers.  He however lacks a sense of racial identity, or what Jessica termed “outcultural inequality”, which served to cloud his judgement and eventually drives him to a permanent home in the woods with Wild.  In many ways, Golden’s “freedom” is lost because he is neither black nor white, and the “belief” that he is different essentially does far more to hurt Golden than the color of his skin.  Golden at one point comes to the realization of his black heritage saying “[I] always thought there was only one kind-True Belle’s kind. Black and nothing. Like Henry LesTroy. Like the filthy woman on the cot.  But there was another kind- like [my]self”.

We discussed in class today about what to intuit from a reading, and how a character’s experience functions to make it “real” for the reader.  As I already said, Golden must have felt trapped between two cultures, unable to be a part of either.  It is written about Vera that “almost every other thing she said was false, but that last bit of information he held to be graven truth.”  Vera doesn’t respect Golden as her child because of his father, and allows him to grow up thinking he is white, treating blacks as totally inferior (the way Vera treated True Belle).  Upon finding his father, he is rebuked by him, paraphrasing “if your going to be my son, you had better act like it”.  Golden realizes he is neither white nor black and is driven to insanity and banishes himself to live with Wild in the woods.