Ayat Jaber History as Fiction

Throughout Kindred , we see how Kevin's ideas transform as he struggles between the early 18th and late 20th centuries. Even in the 20th century, we see how Kevin innocently still held some watered down ideas of white supremacy and power over Dana. We can see this in the way he rudely asked Dana to type his writing on the typewriter and how he assumes Dana will unpack the boxes when they move to their new house. We also see this play out from the beginning of their relationship, though in a good way, as Kevin buys Dana lunch and generally supports the marriage. None of these cases are life threatening or outrageously terrible, but the relationship has a trace of male white supremacy and female black subordination. However, Kevin starts to resemble the white man of the antebellum South as he is pulled back in time with Dana. For one, there is a lot of danger in the role he plays acting with Dana as her slave master. He adjusts to his role pretty fast, and even seems like a harsh ma...

In class yesterday, we talked about how Octavia Butler doesn't just portray the affects of slavery on blacks, but also on whites. However, she doesn't just use Kevin as our white reference point from the 21st century, but she also uses Rufus. We see how Dana's ideas affect Rufus in a unique way that the society of the 1810s and 1820s couldn't have accepted, making us see Rufus in whole new light of... sympathy? From the beginning, we see that Rufus isn't "as bad" as his father, Tom Weylin. He doesn't treat the slaves as badly, as he is even buddies (to a certain extent) with Nigel. He still has many issues, which we will just begin touching on, but he seems to be a bit kinder than most. Even Dana cares for him a bit, and tries to influence him when he is younger, which works to a certain extent. Butler doesn't just show us a 2-D monstrous slave master, but she shows us how that slave master came to be, and how under the surface, he is much more th...

From the simplest of issues to the greatest of them, humans have had many different ways of dealing with problems. You could face them "head on", or give them time. You could block them out and try to ignore them, or in some cases, solve them. However, with mental problems like trauma, you can't simply "solve" them practically. You must learn to live in the mind with those scars. We can only imagine what it's like to go through war, and it's not pretty. Muddy boots is the least of your worries. You're constantly feeling as if it's your last moment, as death constantly bites at your heel. You make friends, you lose friends. Your delusional image of the epic war hero shatters as the truth hits you hard. Billy survived, while many, many others didn't. And Billy had a pretty nice living after the war, while many others didn't. But no matter how great Billy's life was on the outside, his heart was scarred from what he experienced to the...

After reading different blog posts, I wanted to combine some ideas and add in my own of attonism and Jes Grew today. Throughout the centuries, Jes Grew and attonism have taken different forms, as we see in Mumbo Jumbo.  We see Jes Grew in theology, mythology, and musical forms and dance such as jazz, ragtime, and even hip hop and rap. We see attonism in science, math, philosophy, and more traditional musical forms and dance such as classical music and ballet. There are tons more of examples too of how attonism and Jes Grew take shape in our lives and in the past. But the conflict I saw between Jes Grew and attonism, taking out the racial conflict and applying the idea more generally, is that of mind vs. heart. In the sciences and math, attonism is in the focus on our intellect and ability to prove something right for ourselves, strengthening our minds and focusing more on material knowledge and thinking. In the arts, its in the romanticist paintings, or the constant rhythm and...

As we discussed Hayden White's mixing of fiction and history, I was struck by how similar history and fiction really are. "Good" fiction tries to be believeable to its readers, so that the reader can really understand the story and relate to the events. Think of The Hunger Games, Twilight, Harry Potter. They all tap into the characters, and try to make the characters seem as real as possible. Even though there isn’t magic in he world, with muggles and wizards (or is there?) or there isn’t a real hunger games where we all have to fight to the death, or there aren’t vampires and humans that can turn into werewolves, the stories don’t seem so crazy to us. We love reading the stories, and some people relate to the book characters more than the people around them. We compare ourselves to them, and try to imagine their plots and story lines. I don’t know if White was necessarily talking about this type of fiction, or if e was mostly addressing realistic fiction, but I think it ...

For most of Walker's story, I definitely felt that Doctorow respected the man. He wrote about him with integrity and humbleness, making the reader feel inclined toward the good-mannered Ragtime player who loved Sarah. I felt that Doctorow makes the reader like the old-fashioned ways of Walker's approach to Sarah, and makes the reader feel with Walker when we see the treatment and feelings of Mother and Father's family, as they grow to understand more about him, and eventually respect him more. However, the story takes a turn with the Model T's destruction. Doctorow holds Walker in more of a mysterious manner, and although we take him seriously, we feel more for Sarah. With Walker's refusal to marry Sarah until he gets his car back, and with the spirit of Sarah going down, Doctorow makes us feel like Walker isn't taking care of Sarah the way we want him to, and is too focused on the symbolic injustice of the Model T to give time to Sarah. Especially with Sarah...