AM Survey 2 Final Exam Prep

Summary of Gerald Vizenor's "Almost Browne"

"Almost Browne" is a play on words suggesting the crossbloodedness of the story's protagonist. Almost received his name because he was born in the back of a car that was almost within Minnesota's White Earth Indian Reservation. A crossblood, a term Vizenor invented, Almost is not quite Native American (brown), not quite white. He is the son of a native nun, Eternal Flame Browne, and a native priest, Father Mother Browne, whose trickster activities are motivated by the conviction that he is born to torment authority figures.

Modernism 1913-1945

- 1913 armory show / WWI (1914-1918); Picasso's work was so different from realists that it led to a riot; and the war led people to ask: How can we ever be the same? - Stylistic innovation - Less traditional - Disruption of traditional form - Themes = alienation, loss, and despair

The New Woman

- A term coined in the 1920s - No more cult of domesticity: birth control instead of purity, celebration of smoking / drinking instead of piousness, obedient to herself instead of her husband - Origins: the movement of women into the workforce - Young women, single, engaged in wage labor - Wage labor profoundly shaped women's identities- Growing secondary school attendance and industrial work system led to youth / peer culture that loosened young women's allegiance to families - Commercialized forms of recreation fostered awareness of social customs and conventions different from those of their parents' generation - The FLAPPER

Traits of Modernism

- Abrupt shifts in perspective, tone, voice(Jilting of Granny) - Stream of consciousness narrative - Open form / free verse / language play - Focus on artist / act of artistic creation - Reconsider centers / margins - Reject traditional history, substitute mythic past - Free expression, struggle over definitions of "morality" - Search for meaning in a world w/o God

Black Arts Movement (BAM)

- Arose from the Black Power as the lit / artistic arm of Civil Rights movement Traits: a) overtly political b) sees ethics and aesthetics as one (e.g. no art for art's sake, as Modernists might have) c) innovative use of language and specifically Black English d) Values orality and often uses a call and response based in African and African American traditions e) Uses the structure and sensibility of Black musical traditions (jazz, soul, gospel, blues)

Tatonetti's Southern Gothic Overview

- Based on the Gothic. Relies on supernatural, so it's gonna be creepy - The point is to look at the social construction of the South- Questions morals - Critiques aftermath of horrific history Characters have some kind of parody - Takes one aspect of a character and makes it cringe-worthy. Represents the critique - Dislocation and alienation of characters paved way for Modernism

Explain W.E.B. DuBois's theory of the veil. What is it? What caused him to experience it?

- Black men cannot look at the world simply as a man, or even as an American man. They must always view the world as an African American man, and that's how White people will always view them. He discusses how race is experienced in the normal events of a person's life.

Agenda of BAM

- Black power - Black self-determination - Black economics - Black political control of neighborhoods / cities - Restructuring Black community

The Beats

- Time period: 1950s - Writing style: spontaneous confessional prose (trance writing) - Literary traits: s.c.p., stream of consciousness narratives, explicit language and images. fights censorship - beliefs: a) spiritual liberation: actively looking for spiritual enlightenment. advocate for an expansion of religious traditions. influenced by zen buddhism b) open expression of sexuality - queerness and all aspects of sex c) drugs are awesome d) resistance to social norms, government mandates, and censorship Major Players: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsburg

Harlem Renaissance

- Timeline: 1920s- Impetus: The Great Migration, which was the relocation of 6+ million African Americans from rural South to Northern, Midwestern, and Western cities, and thus the economic issues and virulent racism - Breadth: It is the literary and artistic arm of a much larger social movement with roots in the broken promises of the Reconstruction Era - Access: Black intellectuals gained access to mainstream press and larger audiences - Roots: W.E.B. DuBois helped create NAACP (Nat'l Association for the Advancement of Colored People) in 1909. In turn, founded the Crisis magazine in 1910 - Alain Locke publishes his groundbreaking anthology "The New Negro" (1925)

Critiques of BAM

- hypermasculinity - sexism - anti-Semitism - homophobia

who does the cult of domesticity leave out?

- women in the workforce during the Industrial Revolution - women of color they cannot meet this ideology. it's a very classed whiteness

Literary Traits of the Harlem Renaissance

1. Communal and nationalistic 2. Experiments with verse that takes inspiration from African American musical forms AND rewrites aspects of European Literary Traditions 3. Focuses specifically on Black lives, struggles, and joys

3 philosophical backgrounds of Modernism

1. Karl Marx:- Economic determinism, class struggle, human behavior controlled by forces outside the self. WWI was b/c of global economics 2. Sigmund Freud:- Psychological determinism, psychoanalysis, human behavior controlled by forces inside the self 3. C.F. Nietzsche:- God is dead, no divine patterns, search for meaning, spiritual ruin after war, economic and psychological determinism All 3 were trying to make sense of this crazy world

4 Tenants of Cult of Domesticity (The Cult of True Womanhood or the Cult of Republican Motherhood)

1. Piety 2. Purity 3. Submission 4. Domesticity. All were required of upper class women

Tatonetti's Characteristics of Realism

1865-1918 "Tell the Truth" - A reaction to end of the Civil War, Romanticism, and Industrial Revolution - Truth of setting (grounded in time and place) - Emphasis on physical existence - Diction: natural vernacular - Ordinary characters / individuals with agency - "Ethical Idealism" - Democratic; focus on rising middle class - very few formal symbols - Nature as indifferent - 1st / 3rd person narrative Major players: William Dean Howells, Charles Chestnutt, Rebecca Harding Davis, Henry James, Mark Twain

Tatonetti's Characteristics of Naturalism

1890s - 1918 Origins: in Science. Darwin's "Origin of the Species, and Claude Bernard's "Intro to the Study of Experimental Medicine" - Settings = hostile environments - Characters from the fringes / depths of society - Pessimistic determinism - Little character agency and individuality - Nature = hostile - Omniscient narrators - Work against Social Darwinists and their claim of the "Survival of the Fittest" Major players: Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, Jack London, Frank Norris, Edith Wharton

Summary of Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

A man named Bailey intends to take his family from Georgia to Florida for a summer vacation, but his mother (referred to as "the grandmother" in the story), wants him to drive to east Tennessee, where the grandmother has friends ("connections"). She argues that his children, John Wesley and June Star, have never been to east Tennessee, and she shows him a news article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution about an escaped murderer who calls himself "The Misfit" and was last seen in Florida. The next day, the grandmother wakes up early to hide her cat, Pitty Sing, in a basket on the floor in the back of the car. She is worried that the cat will die while they are gone. Bailey finds his mother sitting in the car, dressed in her best clothes and an ostentatious hat; if she should die in an accident along the road, she wants people to see her corpse and know she was refined and "a lady." The grandmother talks constantly during the trip, trying to engage her two grandchildren in games and telling them jokes and a story, about which June Star makes disdainful comments. She recalls her youth in the Old South, reminiscing about her courtships and how much better everything was in her time, when children were respectful and people "did right then." When the family stops at an old diner outside of (the fictitious town of) Timothy, Georgia, for lunch, she talks to the owner, Red Sammy, about The Misfit. He and the grandmother agree that things were much better in the past and that the world at present is degenerate; she concurs with Sammy's remark that "a good man is hard to find." After the family returns to the road, the grandmother begins telling the children a story about a mysterious house nearby with a secret panel, a house she remembers from her childhood. This catches the children's attention and they want to visit the house, so they harass their father until he reluctantly agrees to allow them just one side trip. As he drives them down a remote dirt road, the grandmother suddenly realizes that the house she was thinking of was actually in Tennessee, not Georgia. That realization makes her involuntarily kick her feet which frightens the cat, causing him to spring from his hidden basket onto Bailey's shoulder. Bailey then loses control of the car and it flips over, ending up in a ditch below the road, near Toomsboro. Only the children's mother is injured; the children are frantic with excitement, and the grandmother's main concern is dealing with Bailey's anger. Shaking in the ditch, the family waits for help. When the grandmother notices a black hearse coming down the road, she flags it down until it stops. Three men come out and begin to talk to her. All three have guns. The grandmother says that she recognizes the leader, the quiet man in glasses, as The Misfit. He immediately confirms this, saying it would have been better for them all if she had not recognized him, and Bailey curses his mother. The Misfit's men take Bailey and John Wesley into the woods on a pretense and two pistol shots ring out. The Misfit claims that he has no memory of the crime for which he was imprisoned; when he was informed by doctors that he had killed his father, he claimed that his father died in a flu epidemic. The men then return to take the children's mother, the baby, and June Star to the woods for the same purpose as Bailey and the boy. The grandmother begins pleading for her own life. When The Misfit talks to her about Jesus, he expresses his doubts about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. As he speaks, The Misfit becomes agitated and angry. He snarls into the grandmother's face and claims that life has "no pleasure but meanness." In her growing confusion, the grandmother thinks that The Misfit is going to cry, so she reaches out and touches his shoulder tenderly, saying "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!" His reaction is to jump away "as if a snake had bitten him," and he kills her with three shots through the heart. When the family has all been murdered, The Misfit takes a moment to clean his glasses and pick up Pitty Sing; he states that the grandmother would have been a good woman if there "had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." The story ends with The Misfit chastising one of his sidekicks, Bobby Lee, for making a comment "some fun!" "Shut up, Bobby Lee," he retorts. "It's no real pleasure in life."

Author of Fun Home: A Family Tragicomedy (2006)

Alison Bechdel

Author of "Howl" (1956)

Allen Ginsberg

Author of "Dutchman" (1964)

Amiri Baraka

What does Regionalism emphasize

As a literary movement Regionalism is part of the tradition of Realism. Regionalism emphasizes: 1) a particular locale, 2) its language and speech patterns, 3) its customs, 4) its geography, and 5) the habits and beliefs of its people.

"I don't know anything about communication theory". "Neither does my wife. Come right down to it, who does? That's the joke."

Author: Pynchon Title: "Entropy," Speaker: Saul

What is the significance of ghosts and spirits within Susan Power's The Grass Dancer?

Connection to ancestors; guiding forces; some say it is magical realism, but Powers maintains that it is a key part of the culture - not magic

Summary / Analysis of "In the Ruins of the Future"

DeLillo gives an in depth analysis the events before, during, and the repercussions after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. The essay skips around a bit but the main idea of the essay is somewhat clear. DeLillo describes the terrorist ideology of why they attacked us. Their target was not the global economy but, "It is America that drew their fury. It is the high gloss of our modernity ... our technology ... our foreign policy ... It is the power of American culture to penetrate every wall, home, life, and mind" (S1 P2). DeLillo also touches on the common belief that

Author of "In the Ruins of the Future" (2001)

Don Delillo

Author of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" (1953)

Flannery O'Connor

3. Quote: "She would have been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." / "It's no real pleasure in life."

Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find, The Misfit

What is a grotesque?

Found in the Southern Gothic, a grotesque is a character who is cringe-worthy, slightly twisted, but at the same time, sympathetic - We often see a grotesque as a character who has a particular aspect that is blown up or exaggerated to the point of parody

Author of "Almost Browne" (1991)

Gerald Vizenor

Author of "The Cariboo Café" (1984)

Helena Maria Viramontes

What are two key differences between Naturalism and Realism?

In Naturalism, characters have little to no agency. In realism, characters have a lot of agency. Pessimistic determinism v. Ethical Idealism Realism characters = middle class, Naturalism characters = fringes of society, lower class

Author of "The Vanishing American Hobo" (1960)

Jack Kerouac

Author of "Sonny's Blues" (1957)

James Baldwin

Quote: "Then he began to make it his. It was very beautiful because it wasn't hurried and it was no longer a lament. I seemed to hear with what burning he had made it his, with what burning we had yet to make it ours, how we could cease lamenting. Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did."

James Baldwin, Sonny's Blues

Author of "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" (1966)

Joyce Carol Oates

Analysis of Jack Kerouac's "The Vanishing American Hobo"

Kerouac's essay is about the loss of Americans' personal freedoms and individuality. The hobo is not a conformist, but an individual-someone who does not appear to be like the rest of society. That difference can lie in their way of thinking, living, or spirituality. He gives examples of people he considers hoboes like Beethoven, Einstein, Jesus, Buddha and many other well-known people. These people were not hoboes in a traditional sense but in their ability to speak freely and think in ways that are typical of most people. The vanishing hobo symbolizes a loss of individuality in society that has traded it for social protection. The hobo becomes the marginalized of society and not respected for the contribution that he can make. The desire for social protection and conformity has demanded the increase in the need for police protection- another threat to the hobo and his non-conformity. Kerouac states several times in his essay about the police harassing the hobo.

Author of " from The Autobiography of Malcolm X" (1965)

Malcolm X

Summary of Thomas Pynchon's "Entropy"

Meatball Mulligan throws a lease-breaking party at his apartment in Washington, D.C. in early February of 1957. His guests are a colorful bunch, including Sandor Rojas, an "ex-Hungarian Freedom fighter," and the avant-garde Duke di Angelis quartet comprised of Duke, Vincent, Krinkles and Paco who together perform an original piece in complete silence. Saul, a neighbor of Mulligan's, comes in through the window after an argument with his wife concerning communication theory and the tendency for noise to "screw up your signal," making for "disorganization in the circuit." The party degenerates during the course of the story into a chaotic mess: more guests arrive with more booze, drunken Navymen barge in mistaking the place for a 'hoorhouse,' a woman almost drowns herself in the shower, the fridge needs repair. Meatball, however, decides to take action rather than hide silently in the closet, and through the energy he exerts succeeds in minimizing the chaos of the party through the establishment of order, however temporary and fleeting. Meanwhile, upstairs in the apartment above Mulligan's lives a man named Callisto in a hermetically sealed hothouse with a half-alien woman named Aubade who perceives all sensory input as sound. Callisto clutches a dying bird to his chest while expounding on the nature of Thermodynamics and its theoretical extension beyond the limits of physics into the realms of society and culture as well: just as all closed systems lose energy over time until a 'heat-death' occurs wherein motion ceases, so too does culture have a tendency to lose differentiation and slide toward what Callisto terms 'the Condition of the More Probable.' Entropy, then, which Callisto defines as 'the measure of disorganization for a closed system,' is valuable in that it is "an adequate metaphor to apply to certain phenomena in [the] world" such as the consumerist trend away from difference and toward sameness. Often Aubade checks the temperature outside, which has remained at a constant 37 deg. Fahrenheit for a number of days despite the drastic change in weather. The story ends with the death of the bird Callisto has attempted to sustain through the transfer of heat from his own body to that of the sick animal. Aubade, finally comprehending Callisto's thoughts, punches out the windows of their apartment/self-contained ecosystem and sits with Callisto to await "the moment of equilibrium" between their world and the world outside.

Author of "Dispatches" (1977)

Michael Herr

W.D. Howells "Editha" is an example of a realist text, what are the qualities that identify it as so?

Middle class characters; question of agency; social norms

Post Modernism vs. Modernism

Modernism: - quest for meaning in chaotic world - explores fragmented construction - sees as existential crisis, internal conflict that must be solved - focus on artist and act of artistic creation - classical allusions - themes of alienation, loss, despair. how to see meaning in life? - often associated with identity, unity, authority and certain - reader is irrelevant Post-Modernism: - questions possibility of any meaning; often a parody of the quest - explores fragmented construction - this chaos can't be helped so much, just be played with - celebrates chance over craft (distrust totalizing mechanisms, even the author) - pop culture allusions - concept of play - associated with difference, separation, textuality, and skepticism. celebrates the meaninglessness - reader has subjectivity

Summary & Analysis of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl"

Part 1: Called by Ginsberg "a lament for the Lamb in America with instances of remarkable lamb-like youths", Part I is perhaps the best known, and communicates scenes, characters, and situations drawn from Ginsberg's personal experience as well as from the community of poets, artists, political radicals, jazz musicians, drug addicts, and psychiatric patients whom he encountered in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Ginsberg refers to these people, who were underrepresented outcasts in what the poet believed to be an oppressively conformist and materialistic era, as "the best minds of my generation". He describes their experiences in graphic detail, openly discussing drug use and homosexual activity at multiple points. Most lines in this section contain the fixed base "who". In "Notes Written on Finally Recording Howl," Ginsberg writes, "I depended on the word 'who' to keep the beat, a base to keep measure, return to and take off from again onto another streak of invention".[21] Part 2: Ginsberg says that Part II, in relation to Part I, "names the monster of mental consciousness that preys on the Lamb". Part II is about the state of industrial civilization, characterized in the poem as "Moloch". Ginsberg was inspired to write Part II during a period of peyote-induced visionary consciousness in which he saw a hotel façade as a monstrous and horrible visage which he identified with that of Moloch, the Biblical idol in Leviticus to whom the Canaanites sacrificed children.[21] Ginsberg intends that the characters he portrays in Part I be understood to have been sacrificed to this idol. Moloch is also the name of an industrial, demonic figure in Fritz Lang's Metropolis, a film that Ginsberg credits with influencing "Howl, Part II" in his annotations for the poem (see especially Howl: Original Draft Facsimile, Transcript & Variant Versions). Most lines in this section contain the fixed base "Moloch". Ginsberg says of Part II, "Here the long line is used as a stanza form broken into exclamatory units punctuated by a base repetition, Moloch."[21] Part III: Part III, in relation to Parts I, II and IV, is "a litany of affirmation of the Lamb in its glory", according to Ginsberg. It is directly addressed to Carl Solomon, whom Ginsberg met during a brief stay at a psychiatric hospital in 1949; called "Rockland" in the poem, it was actually Columbia Presbyterian Psychological Institute. This section is notable for its refrain, "I'm with you in Rockland", and represents something of a turning point away from the grim tone of the "Moloch"-section. Of the structure, Ginsberg says Part III is "pyramidal, with a graduated longer response to the fixed base".[21] Footnote: The closing section of the poem is the "Footnote", characterized by its repetitive "Holy!" mantra, an ecstatic assertion that everything is holy. Ginsberg says, "I remembered the archetypal rhythm of Holy Holy Holy weeping in a bus on Kearny Street, and wrote most of it down in notebook there.... I set it as 'Footnote to Howl' because it was an extra variation of the form of Part II."[21]

What are the 4 tenants of the Cult of Domesticity? How do we see these tenants play out in any of the texts we have read this semester?

Piety, Purity, Submission, Domesticity. Text: Trifles - shows the effects and begins to subvert them / give power back to the women

Summary of The Grass Dancer

Prologue: Crowns of Glass - Harley dreams of his father and his brother often. He remembers the accident they died in before Harley was born. Henry Burger was drinking and angry about his wife's (Jeannette Mcvay) infidelity. Burger caused a head-on collision with Calvin Wind Soldier and Duane while trying to send the imaginary eyes he saw into hell. Chapter 1: Grass Dancers - Set in 1981 at the Dakota Days Contest Powwow. In this chapter the reader is introduced to all of the main characters. At the powwow Pumpkin does a Grass Dance, which is untraditional for a woman to do. After the powwow Pumpkin spend the night with Harley Wind Soldier. The next night Pumpkin and her friends die in a car crash. Chapter 2: Christianity Comes to the Sioux - this chapter focuses on Harley Wind Soldier as an eighth grader in 1977. Harley internalizes his thoughts about his teacher, Jeanette McVeigh. He watches her behavior toward the students in his class, and observes she is trying too hard. Jeanette studies the culture in books, then applies it to the students, even when it may be out of context. Harley also sees Star Wars for the first time. It was so good, he sees it twice and identifies with the story and characters. This chapter also discusses how Christianity came to the reservation. The Missouri River runs through the reservation, and the river brought boats. On one of the boats came a piano, and gospel music was played. The piano allowed Christianity to take hold, as the tribe appreciated the music from the instrument. Chapter 3: The Medicine Hole - This chapter takes place in 1976 and is told from the point of view of Herod Small War. Archie Iron Necklace has a dream about Native soldiers escaping from marksmen through the opening of a medicine hole in the ground. Upon revealing this dream to Herod in a Yuwipi ceremony, Archie, Herod, Frank, and Harley set out to find the medicine hole. While looking for it, they stumble upon the abandoned and haunted house of a white woman named Clara Miller. Herod Small War once worked for her in 1921 and engaged in an affair with her, as his wife refused to have sex with him because of certain Sioux traditions related to their newly born children. Archie Iron Necklace was the one who discovered this affair, and beat up Herod for doing so, since Archie is also in love with Alberta, Herod's wife. Because a storm rolled in that night, the boys took shelter in Clara's home, where her spirit then helped to reveal that Herod Small War was himself, the medicine hole. Chapter 4: Moonwalk - This chapter takes place in the year 1969 during the Apollo 11 moon landing. Margaret Many Wounds was diagnosed with diabetes three years prior and her health has dwindled drastically. Evie and Lydia are by their mother's side in her final moments making sure she is comfortable for passing.Margaret Many Wounds could not sleep because she noticed 'dark figures' at the foot of her bed. She began to recall the story of her two lovers, Charles Bad Holy Macleod and Dr. Sei-ichi Sakuma. Margaret Many Wounds was with Charles Bad Holy Macleod for two years before his death and did not get pregnant with him. After his death, Margaret Many Wounds began working at the Bismarck camp, a prisoner of war camp, which Dr. Sakuma volunteered to work at as well. Margaret Many Wounds became pregnant with Evie and Lydia by Dr. Sakuma, and decided to lie about the father to her tribe because she did not want to be known for sleeping with the enemy. This story was never told to Evie and she became infuriated, because her mother lied to her about her father and she looked up to this fictional father of hers. Margaret Many Wounds died before the waštunkala was finished, and was reunited with her first love Charles Bad Holy Macleod. Margaret Many Wounds funeral service followed suit and her casket was surrounded by her loved ones. The chapter ends with Margaret Many Wounds' spirit dancing on the moon past Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin into space where she stopped dancing and proceeded to step off "beyond the edge of the universe." Chapter 5: Morse Code - This chapter takes place in 1964. Crystal Thunder and Martin Lundstrom are both outcasts in their high school. They fall in love but keep their romance a secret from their mothers as they know they wouldn't approve. Crystal has a standoffish relationship with her mother, due to the strange magic her mother uses. Later, Martin proposes to Crystal who agrees, finding out that she is actually pregnant with his child. Crystal's mother is not happy about her daughter's choices but makes a deal with her. If she stays with her mother during the pregnancy, without seeing Martin at all until the child born, she may marry him. Crystal endures nine months of isolation with her mother. After the baby is born, Crystal's mother keeps it as part of the deal. Crystal marries Martin and leaves the reservation, telling her husband the child died in birth. They move to Chicago as Martin got a job at the Chicago Tribune as an artist. Crystal becomes lonely while her husband is at work and feels remorseful about her decision to leave home. Much to her dismay, Martin's mother Isabel moves in with them. Crystal is somewhat resentful to the woman at first, but Isabel teaches Crystal traditional wife duties and ends her feeling of loneliness. Chapter 6: A Hole in the Sheets - Time stamped 1961, Anna Thunder is taking a bath when she is interrupted by Jeanette McVay, who is offered peaches and water while she explains the reason for her visit. Her story begins with Archeology and wanting to research the funeral and how a people deal with death on several levels.. Anna tells Jeanette that she has a plan to correct a past wrong and falls asleep on the floor. She dreams of telling Calvin that they are to be together when Herod appears and tells her of an enchanted belt, which will not let her pass. Frustrated, Anna returns to her body from her dream and wakes up to discover Crystal was holding her and had thought she died. After hearing of Albert Elk Nation's death, Anna sabotages Calvin's relationship with his wife by threading pieces of Calvin's bed in Evelyn's, Calvin's wife's sister, and vice versa. The relationship was destroyed when Jeannette brings news of Evelyn's pregnancy even though her boyfriend had been kicked out. Anna becomes angry because Jeanette doesn't believe that Anna could be responsible for this event. Jeanette leaves the next day to head into town through Herod Small War, who drove her. However, after leaving Anna places a curse upon Jeannette that she would never be able to leave the reservation even though she wants to. Chapter 7: Honor Song - This chapter follows Lydia Wind Soldier in 1964. The early parts of the chapter detail Lydia's relationship with her younger twin sister, Evelyn. It quickly becomes apparent that Lydia and Evelyn have contrasting personalities. On her way home during a blizzard, Lydia almost runs over a freezing Calvin Wind Soldier. After stopping, Lydia puts him into her car, drives him home, and spends the night with him, which is uncharacteristically of her. Upon returning home. Lydia's mother thought nothing of her daughter's night with Calvin, but it would later be revealed that they became engaged. Calvin shares his Korean War stories with Lydia, as well as his relation to Red Dress early in their marriage. While Lydia was sick, Anna Thunder visits Calvin and curses him, which leads to him having an affair with Lydia's sister, Evelyn, which results in Evelyn giving birth to Calvin's Child. Lydia and Calvin decide to raise the child as their own, but this takes a mental toll on Lydia, leading to her breakdown which causes Calvin and the baby, Duane, to go for a drive. During this drive Calvin and Duane are involved in an accident caused by Henry Burger, resulting in their deaths. After this incident, Lydia stops speaking. Chapter 11: The Vision Pit - The last chapter takes place in 1982. After Charlene leaves Mercury to live with her parents in Chicago, the people of reservation still do not trust Mercury. Near the end of the book, Harley fails to recognize the importance of his mother's traditional dancing dress that she has been working on for years, finds Harley drunk at a powwow, and slaps him. Herod Small War plans a vision pit experience to help Harley heal. While there, Harley is visited by his grandmother, Margaret Many Wounds, his father, Calvin Wind Soldier, and his brother, Duane Wind Soldier. Additionally, Red Dress and Ghost Horse appear and share an important message with Harley about the grass dance, tradition, and his identity. As he leaves the vision pit, he finally understands who he is.

Summary of "The Autobiography of Malcolm X"

Published posthumously, The Autobiography of Malcolm X is an account of the life of Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little (1925-1965), who became a human rights activist. Beginning with his mother's pregnancy, the book describes Malcolm's childhood in Michigan, the death of his father under questionable circumstances, and his mother's deteriorating mental health that resulted in her commitment to a psychiatric hospital.[4] Little's young adulthood in Boston and New York City is covered, as well as his involvement in organized crime. This led to his arrest and subsequent eight- to ten-year prison sentence, of which he served six-and-a-half years (1946-1952).[5] The book addresses his ministry with Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam (1952-1963) and his emergence as the organization's national spokesman. It documents his disillusionment with and departure from the Nation of Islam in March 1964, his pilgrimage to Mecca, which catalyzed his conversion to orthodox Sunni Islam, and his travels in Africa.[6] Malcolm X was assassinated in New York's Audubon Ballroom in February 1965, before they finished the book. His co-author, journalist Alex Haley, summarizes the last days of Malcolm X's life, and describes in detail their working agreement, including Haley's personal views on his subject, in the Autobiography's epilogue.[7]

Southern Gothic

Seen in Sherwood Anderson, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy - A South of misfits and prophets - S.G. riffs off the gothic: creepy overtimes, occasional ghosts, spooky feeling - damsel in distress - the goal: to question and critique society and offer a form of social commentary

Analysis of The Grass Dancer

Susan Power uses the aspect of relationships as a sub-primary theme throughout The Grass Dancer. Harley and Pumpkin relationship in the beginning of the story which brings out the jealousy of Charlene Thunder. Crystal Thunder's (daughter to Charlene Thunder) love for a non-native Indian, Martin Lundstrom. Mercury Thunder uses her "bad magic" out of revenge against Calvin Wind Soldier because he is wearing a belt that repels her spells to make him fall in love with her. Instead, Mercury Thunder casts a spell that makes him have an affair with his wife's sister, Evelyn. Power uses the idea of marriage as an end result throughout the book. Lydia Wind Soldier marries Calvin Wind soldier after two months of dating. Power continues the struggle of power in relationships between "love, revenge, and jealousy." Susan Powers deals with the theme of non-Indian ideals throughout The Grass Dancer. Whether or not this is because she was not raised on the reservation is unknown, but there are many elements that point towards the theme of leaving the reservation and issues that are non-native Indians. Jeannette McVay coerces her students to share their real cultural stories with the class. Powers flirts with the notion of non-native Indian relationships with white partners throughout the story. Jeanette McVay and her husband have a baby that doesn't look white at all and Herod has an affair with a white woman named Clara Miller. Crystal Thunder (daughter of Anna/Mercury Thunder) also falls in-love with a white boy named Martin Lundstrom. Powers also deals with the notion of the end result of leaving the reservation. Charlene Thunder (1981) leaves the reservation after she tries to work some love magic to get Harley to fall in-love with her. She ends up leaving the reservation to go to Chicago to find her parents. Throughout the novel the reader is presented with two legends of two fabled spirits, Red Dress and Ghost Horse. Red Dress became a spirit according to the legend to protect her descendants and was projected to be the start of the magical medicine of the Thunder family. While ghost horse is a warrior who chose to become a heyoka, or sacred clown, after his love Red Dress died. His spirit was said to guard over her body for one year. The legends states that both spirits are constantly seeking one another in the generations that follow. However towards the end of the novel it becomes clear that Red Dress is the only supernatural force influencing the novel, since Ghost Horse has left the earth in spirit form after he died on the battle field. Yet the legend does hold truth, since Charlene Thunder constantly seeks out the love of Henry both of which are descendants of Red Dress and Ghost Horse.[1]

Author of The Grass Dancer (1994)

Susan Powers

Analysis of "Sonny's Blues"

Symbolism / Themes: - Darkness and light - Music - Ice - Pain, passing it on, and growing from it - Absence

Modernism Major Plays

T.S. Eliot James Joyce Virginia Wolfe Franz Kafka William Faulkner Ezra Pound F. Scott Fitzgerald Gertrude Stein Wallace Stevens

Summary of Amiri Baraka's "Dutchman"

The action focuses almost exclusively on Lula, a white woman, and Clay, a black man, who both ride the subway in New York City. Lula boards the train eating an apple, an allusion to the Biblical Eve. The characters engage in a long, flirtatious conversation throughout the train ride. Lula sits down next to Clay. She accuses him of staring at her buttocks. She ignores his denials and uses stereotypes to correctly guess where he lives, where he is going, what Clay's friend, Warren, looks and talks like. Lula guesses that Clay tried to get his own sister to have sex with him when he was 10. Clay is shocked by her apparent knowledge of his past and says that she must be a friend of Warren. Lula is glad that Clay is so easy to manipulate and puts her hand on his leg. She feeds him apples. She tells Clay to invite her out to the party he is going to. At this point, it is unclear whether Clay is really going to a party, but he tells her he really is. Lula vaguely alludes to having sex with Clay at her "apartment" after the "party". We don't know if these are real or conveniently made-up by Lula. Clay is gladdened by Lula's apparent liking for him and maintains a hopeful attitude to having sex together. However, he does not push his hope onto her and waits for Lula to make the offer first. Lula is angered by Clay's not falling for her manipulative tactics. She switches strategies and mocks Clay's Anglo-American speech, his college education and his three-button suit. She derides his being black and passive. She dances mockingly in an R&B style and tells Clay to join her and "do the nasty. Rub bellies". Clay, who does not respond initially, eventually grabs her and throws her down. Clay accuses Lula of knowing nothing but "luxury". He slaps her twice and tells her to leave him alone. Clay launches into a monologue. Clay suggests that whites let black people dance "black" dances and make "black" music. He explains that these segregatory actions assuage black Americans' anger towards whites and distracts them from accessing the "white man's intellectual legacy". Clay states that if black people stopped trying to heal their pain through dance, music, civic participation, religion, or focusing on moving upwards in American society, and became coldly rational like white people, black people would just kill all the whites and be done with racism in America. Clay says that if he were to take Lula's words to heart, he should just kill all the white people he meets. Although Clay says all this, he deeply rejects this plan of action. He states that he does not want to kill and that he prefers to be ignorant of the problem. He says he would rather choose to pretend to be ignorant of racism, not try to get rid of it by fighting with whites. Once Clay makes his confession, Lula changes strategies again. Clay makes as if to leave, but Lula coolly, rationally, stabs him twice to the heart. She directs all the other passengers, blacks and whites, in the train car to throw his body out and get out at the next stop. The play ends with Lula looking towards another young black man who has just boarded the now mostly empty train car. The elderly black train conductor steps into the compartment and tips Lula his hat.

Define Naturalism

The belief that nature is hostile or at least indifferent to man. There is nothing inside or outside the universe, no transcendent power that sympathizes with man. Characters have very little agency. Pessimistic Determinism = your future is already determined for you

Analysis of Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

The dominant opinion of the story is that the grandmother's final act was one of grace and charity, which implies that "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" was written to show a transformation in the grandmother as the story progresses. She originally perceives herself as a righteous woman, making her able to "justify" all of her actions. She bribes the granddaughter and encourages the defiance of the children against the father; in the end, she even begins to deny the miracles of Jesus as she states "Maybe He didn't raise the dead".[5] Regardless of this, she still is trying to share the message of the Gospel with the Misfit. The reader sees how she, in the final moments of her life, tries to save one more soul after the Misfit has already killed her family, by calling out the Misfit's name. A second opinion on the issue is that the grandmother's final act was not an act of charity and that she is yet again trying to save herself from being murdered. Some say that Flannery O'Connor uses the excuse as the grandmother's final "moment of grace" to save the story from the bloodshed and violence.[6] The sins the grandmother commits throughout the story depict her as a severely flawed individual in need of saving. Only at her death does she realize her faults. After he shoots her, the Misfit claims "she would have been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." O'Connor includes this line because she is not trying to convey the message that if someone has a traumatic experience, their life will be changed. She instead conveys a message of the sinful nature of humans; these experiences people may go through do not stick. The grandmother's life would have to be threatened every day for her to become a good person.[12]

Summary of Helena Maria Viramontes' "The Cariboo Cafe"

The first part focuses on a protagonist named Sonya. She is a young girl that is taking care of her younger brother Macky. They live with a man who is referred to as her Popi (which can be assumed to be her father); he is not often home and she is forced to take care of her younger brother. One day after being held down and nearly stripped by a boy named Lalo, she loses her house key and is unable to get her and her brother into their home. Part two is told from the perspective of the owner of the Cariboo Cafe. The owner details the events of a day or so, in which a man overdosed in the bathroom, and the investigating officers cast suspicion on the owner himself. He also describes a woman who comes in with two little children, who the reader is able to recognize as Sonya and Macky. The owner feels an affection for Macky because the young boy reminds him of his son JoJo, who was killed in Vietnam. The owner begins to refer to Macky as "Short Order," but doesn't like the distrustful look that he is given by the boy's sister, Sonya. After the woman and the children leave, three illegal immigrants run into the cafe and hide in the bathroom. When the police arrive, the owner tells them where to find the three men and the men are taken away. The owner sees a news report about the two children from before, but doesn't tell the police he has seen the missing kids. The next day, the woman comes in with the kids again and part two ends. Part three is told partly from the perspective of a third person omniscient narrator, and gets very confusing. The first part focuses on the older woman who has Sonya and Macky with her, and details the events of her earlier life. She suffers from the loss of her son. Geraldo, who was abducted by Contras when he was a child. In part three we find out what happened to him. The trauma of the terrible loss causes her to leave their home and go to the United States. The entire experience has caused her to become delusional, and when she discovers the two children she believes that the young boy, Macky, is her son. She takes the two children into her care, bathes them and feeds them, and they stay the night in her place. The story then shifts back to the cafe, and continues with the same omniscient narrator. The woman brings the children back to the cafe, and the owner recognizes them. He grows nervous and calls the police, trying to maintain his composure until they arrive but the situation causes him to begin to cry over the familial losses he has suffered in his own life. The police arrive and the woman, believing the police are the Contras coming to take Geraldo away from her again, attempts to flee with Macky. When she can't get away, she throws a pot of hot coffee on the officers, thinking she is protecting her son. She pleads with onlookers for help, and then begins to fight the officers. In the final paragraph the story shifts to her perspective and the reader is able to see the true level of her delusion as she is either knocked out or killed while thinking "I'll never let go. Because we are going home. My son and I."

Summary of Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"

The main character of Oates' story is Connie, a beautiful, self-absorbed 15-year-old girl, who is at odds with her mother—once a beauty herself—and with her dutiful, "steady", and homely older sister. Without her parents' knowledge, she spends most of her evenings picking up boys at a Big Boy restaurant, and one evening captures the attention of a stranger in a gold convertible covered with cryptic writing. While her parents are away at her aunt's barbecue, two men pull up in front of Connie's house and call her out. She recognizes the driver, Arnold Friend, as the man from the drive-in restaurant, and is initially charmed by the smooth-talking, charismatic stranger. He tells Connie he is 18 and has come to take her for a ride in his car with his sidekick Ellie. Connie slowly realizes that he is actually much older,[5] and grows afraid. When she refuses to go with them, Friend becomes more forceful and threatening, saying that he will harm her family, while at the same time appealing to her vanity, saying that she is too good for them. Connie is compelled to leave with him and do what he demands of her.

Summary of Ch. 1 of "Fun Home"

The memoir focuses on Bechdel's family, and is centered on her relationship with her father, Bruce. Bruce was a funeral director and high school English teacher in Beech Creek, where Alison and her siblings grew up. The book's title comes from the family nickname for the funeral home, the family business in which Bruce grew up and later worked; the phrase also refers ironically to Bruce's tyrannical domestic rule.[40] Bruce's two occupations are reflected in Fun Home's focus on death and literature.[41] In the beginning of the book, the memoir exhibits Bruce's obsession with restoring the family's Victorian home.[41] His obsessive need to restore the house is connected to his emotional distance from his family, which he expressed in coldness and occasional bouts of abusive rage.[41][42] This emotional distance, in turn, is connected with his being a closeted homosexual.[29] Bruce had homosexual relationships in the military and with his high school students; some of those students were also family friends and babysitters.[43] At the age of 44, two weeks after his wife requested a divorce, he stepped into the path of an oncoming Sunbeam Bread truck and was killed.[44] Although the evidence is equivocal, Alison concludes that her father committed suicide.

Summary of Tim O'Brien's "In the Field"

The morning after Kiowa's death, the platoon wades in the mud of the sewage field with Jimmy Cross leading the way. Cross thinks of Kiowa and the crime that is his death. He concludes that although the order to camp came from a higher power, he made a mistake letting his men camp on the dangerous riverbank. He decides to write a letter to Kiowa's father saying what a good soldier Kiowa was. When the search for Kiowa's body gets underway on the cold, wet morning, Azar begins cracking jokes about "eating shit" and "biting the dirt," and Bowker rebukes him. Halfway across the field, Mitchell Sanders discovers Kiowa's rucksack, and the men begin wading in the muck, desperately searching for the body. Meanwhile, Jimmy Cross finishes composing the letter in his head and reflects that he never wanted the responsibility of leadership in the first place—he signed up for Reserve Officers Training Corps without giving thought to the consequences. He blames himself for making the wrong decision, concluding that he should have followed his first impulse and removed the men from the field. He feels that his oversight caused Kiowa's death. In the distance he notices the shaking body of a young soldier and goes over to speak to him. The soldier too blames himself for being unable to save Kiowa and becomes determined to find the body because Kiowa was carrying the only existing picture of the soldier's ex-girlfriend. After the platoon has spent a half a day wading in the field, Azar ceases his joking. The men find Kiowa's body wedged between a layer of mud, take hold of the two boots, and pull. Unable to move it, they call over Dobbins and Kiley, who also help pull. After ten minutes and more pulling, Kiowa's body rises to the surface covered with blue-green mud. Harrowed and relieved, the men clean him up and then try to take their mind off him. Azar apologizes for the jokes. Cross squats in the muck, revising the letter to Kiowa's father in his head. He notices the unnamed soldier, still searching for the missing picture. The soldier tries to get Cross's attention, saying he has to explain something. But Cross ignores him, choosing instead to float in the muck, thinking about blame, responsibility, and golf.

Analysis of "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"

The narrative has been viewed as an allegory for initiation into sexual adulthood,[10] an encounter with the devil, a critique of modern youth's obsession with sexual themes in popular music,[11] or as a dream sequence.[12]

Analysis of "Dutchman"

The play's title evokes images of Dutch ships that carried slaves across the Atlantic. The subway car itself, endlessly traveling the same course, is symbolic of "The Course of History."[5] Another layer of the title's symbolism is the myth of the Flying Dutchman, a ghost ship which, much like the subway car Clay rides on, endlessly sails on with a crew that is unable to escape the confines of the vessel.[6]

Analysis of "Almost Browne"

The short story "Almost Browne" by Gerald Vizenor centralizes the issues of authenticity and truth behind Native identity. Words are established as a failed method for obtaining truth and knowledge about Almost Browne's identity and culture. Almost Browne's very name is assigned to him by a doctor, rather than by his parents. This shows Western Culture's tendency to assign an identity to Native peoples rather than give Native peoples the opportunity to express their identity on their own terms. The absurdity of words and the ignorance surrounding Native identity is further underlined by the professor's comments when Almost Browne and Drain sell books: " 'That's real music, ethnic authenticity at the very threshold of civilization.' That old professor shouted that we were real too..." (2780). The irony here is that Drain is not Native. It is clear that the professor is using words without truly seeing anything about the authentic identity of the people he is describing. From this clearly illustrated failure of words to embody the Native identity, the significance of selling blank books becomes clear. Just as the books do not deliver the words someone might expect to find on the pages, Native people do not truly embody the identity assigned through arbitrary words. The author is asking the reader to step outside of words and expectations and instead to really look and think.

Summary of James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues"

The story opens with the unnamed narrator reading about a heroin bust resulting in the arrest of a man named Sonny. The narrator goes about his day as an algebra teacher at a high school in Harlem, but begins to ponder Sonny's fate and worry about the boys in his class. After school, he meets a friend of Sonny, who laments Sonny will struggle with loneliness even after his detox and release. After his daughter Grace dies of polio, Sonny's brother decides to reach out to Sonny, who is in rehab after the bust. Sonny's brother remembers when he left for the war, leaving Sonny with his wife Isabel and her parents. Sonny decides to play the piano, and his passion is obsessive. Once Isabel's parents find out that Sonny has not been attending school, he leaves their house, drops out of school, and joins the Navy. The brothers return from the war. Their relationship sours, as the narrator intermittently fights with Sonny. Back in the present, the narrator reveals that Grace's death has caused him to reflect on his role as an older brother, surmising that his absence impaired Sonny's personal growth. The narrator resolves to reconcile with Sonny. While Isabel takes her children to see their grandparents, the narrator contemplates searching Sonny's room. He changes his mind, however, when he sees Sonny in a revival meeting in the street below his apartment, where a woman sings with a tambourine alongside her brother and sister, and enraptures the audience. Some time later, Sonny invites the narrator to watch him play in Greenwich Village. The narrator begrudgingly agrees to go. Sonny explains his heroin addiction in vague analogies. The woman's performance reminded him of the rush he got using heroin, equating it to a need to feel in control. The narrator asks Sonny if he has to feel like that to play. Sonny answers that some people do. The narrator then asks Sonny if it is worth killing himself just to try to escape suffering. Sonny replies that he will not die faster than anyone else trying not to suffer. Sonny reveals that the reason he wanted to leave Harlem was to escape the drugs. The brothers go to the jazz club in Greenwich Village. The narrator realizes how revered Sonny is there as he hears him play. In the beginning, Sonny falters, as he has not played for over a year, but his playing eventually proves to be brilliant and he wins over the narrator and everyone in the club. The narrator sends a cup of Scotch and milk up to the piano for Sonny and the two share a brief moment of bonding. The narrator finally understands it is through music that Sonny is able to turn his suffering into something worthwhile.

Analysis of Pynchon's "Entropy"

This positive power to act decisively in the face of disorder is embodied by two characters in "Entropy", Meatball Mulligan and Aubade, who make crucial decisions to change the systems of which they are a part. Meatball Mulligan restores order and momentum to his lease-breaking party, which had reached its third day and was running down. Aubade smashes the window of Callisto's hermetically sealed apartment, upsetting its thermal equilibrium with a rush of cold spring air. we think we're in control of our lives, but really, most of the time we're just particles in the system, subject to forces we can't control, inevitably and irreversibly moving toward our final disordered state.

Author of "Entropy" (1960)

Thomas Pynchon

Analysis of "In the Field"

Through the character of Cross, "In the Field" addresses how a direct experience with death can change a person. Cross is not angry with the young soldier, who is more frustrated by the loss of his ex-girlfriend's picture than by the loss of his fellow soldier. However, Cross, more than most of the other soldiers, understands the power of pictures and tokens to elicit memories and keep thoughts away from war's atrocities. In "The Things They Carried," he feels his obsession with pictures of his unrequited beloved so distracting that he burns them all in a foxhole. In Cross's matter-of-fact response to Kiowa's death in "In the Field," O'Brien illustrates that war has shown Cross the importance of focusing on the task at hand rather than love far away. In times of war, O'Brien suggests, priorities become clear. In spite of the gruesome images of death and the horrible task at hand for the company, this story, like several of the others, suggests that optimism cannot be quashed, even in the most tenuous of times. At one point in the story, as the men are trying to unearth Kiowa's body, Henry Dobbins comments that things could be worse, suggesting an undefeatable hope against hope. Though Dobbins doesn't articulate how specifically things could be worse, the answer is implicit in the life-celebrating tone O'Brien uses in the rest of the story. The men feel giddy about being alive and being lucky, about being able to strip down and change clothes and start a fire. Each experience of death brings each man closer to life.

Author of "In the Field" (1990) (The Things They Carried)

Tim O'Brien

Literary PoMo

Timeline: 1968-present Impetus: globalization, shifts in communication Literary traits: - rejects master narratives (Big T truths: science, history, etc.) - embraces parody, satire, irony, play - employs pastiche (to combine, paste together multiple narratives, to imitate) - often displays fragmentation, discontinuous narrative (time is distorted) - deploys and plays with globalization - recognizes and plays with impossibility of communication of human connection in POMO world - themes of paranoia - pomo condition = ambivalence

double-consciousness

a concept conceived by W.E.B. DuBois to describe the two behavioral scripts, one for moving through the world and the other incorporating the external opinions of prejudiced onlookers, which are constantly maintained by African Americans

Define Realism

ordinary people in ordinary situations, physical/psychological problems of middle class. A pushback against romantization / Romantic period; captured nitty gritty of middle class. Ethical Idealism = the idea that things are getting better