Richard Wright - The Man Who Was Almost a Man

                I enjoyed reading the short story “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” by Richard Wright.  I have finally got the hang of reading the slang language and I love it.  In this short story there was one theme that stuck out to me.  The theme is the search for power.  Dave is imprisoned in a world that deprives him of his personal and money-making power.  He sees his life as a series of abuses and embarrassments.  He is forced to obey his parents, work as a field hand for pay that he never receives, and endure teasing from the other field workers.  His increasing sense of poverty robs him from social and economic forces which keep him from achieving his potential and pursuing his dreams.  Dave’s outlet comes from the idea of owning a gun which is a way for him to quickly become powerful and masculine.  Dave believes that having a pistol in his hand will give him more control over others.  Jenny’s death only limits his future by forcing him to repay Mr. Hawkins the price for the dead mule.  The death of Jenny was accidental but it could be interpreted as Dave’s unconscious desire to strike out against Mr. Hawkins.  Dave could be lashing out at an economic system and social order that he will always be excluded from simply because of his skin color by destroying a symbol of Hawkins prosperity and power as a landowner.  There are at least two symbols that I noticed in this short story.  The first symbol is the gun.  The gun represents control, manhood, respect, and independence. All of these things are exactly what Dave wants.  Dave sees the gun as the solution to all his problems and a reward for all his flaws.  Dave hates the fact that the other field hands treat him like a child and thus mistakenly believes that owning a gun would instantly make a man out of him.  Despite the fact he doesn’t even know how to fire a gun.  He improperly reasons that owning a gun would somehow provide him with independence.  He thought that knowing how to fire it would keep him out of the fields and provide him with greater opportunities.  Dave fantasizes about shooting at Mr. Hawkins house, which suggests that Jenny’s death taught him nothing.  It has only made him want more power, independence, and manhood.  Another symbol is the mule.  The mule, Jenny, represents Dave himself, which fears working as an obedient field hand on another’s man’s land for the rest of his life.  He deliberately recognizes the similarities between himself and Jenny when he says that everyone “treat[s] me like a mule, n they beat me,” referring to the beating that his father had promised him.  Dave believes that all he does is labor like Jenny, hooked to a plow with little hope for reward, escape, or even becoming something better.  The mule also signifies dedication and responsibility, promises of adulthood that Dave is still unwilling to accept.  All he wants is the freedom that he visualizes adults to have without any of their responsibilities.  Jenny’s death is the symbolic death of Dave’s childhood, which he wishes to escape the community and a life of labor.  The power that Dave links with owning a gun brings change but it forces him to go aboard a journey to manhood for which he’s not yet ready for.              

SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The Man Who Was Almost a Man.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2007. Web. 17 Mar. 2011.

Richard Wright - Introduction and Biography

                Richard Nathan Wright was born on September 4, 1908 in Roxie, Mississippi.  He was the son of Nathan Wright who was an illiterate sharecropper.  His mother was Ella Wilson Wright and she was a schoolteacher.  He was also the grandson of slaves.  His father deserts the family for another woman and Ella works as a cook to support the family.  Richard entered school at Howe Institute in September 1915.  In early 1916 his mother fell ill and his father, Nathan, sent his mother to care for the family.  Richard and his brother had to live in an orphanage for a short time when their grandmother left until their mother could have them live with her parents in Jackson, Mississippi.  Wright entered school again in the fall of 1918 but he was forced to leave after a few months because his mother’s poor health forced him to earn money to support the family.  Richard entered the 5^th grade in Jackson at the age of 13 and was soon placed in 6^th grade.  He delivered newspapers and worked briefly with a traveling insurance salesman.  He managed to earn enough money to but textbooks, food, and clothes by running errands for white people.  He read novels, magazines, and anything else that he could get his hands on.  He wrote his first short story, “The Voodoo of Half-Acre,” in the winter and it was published in the spring of 1924 in the Jackson Southern Register.  He graduated valedictorian of his 9^th grade class in 1925.  Only after a few weeks in high school he had to quit school to earn money to support his brother Leon Alan had returned from Detroit.  There were times that he worked two or three jobs at a time.  After the stock market crash, he lost his job at the post office but he began a novel in 1930 which reflected his experience in the post office.  He had the opportunity to write through the Federal Writer’s Project.  He also became a member of the Communist Party and published poetry and short stories in such magazines as Left Front, Anvil, and New Masses.  His mother dies on January 14, 1959.  Wright dies on November 28, 1960 of a heart attack.  He is cremated along with a copy of ‘Black Boy’ on December 3, 1960.  His ashes remain at the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris.  In 1977 his autobiographical, American Hunger, which narrates his experience after moving to the North, was published.  Some of the more open passages that dealt with race, sex, and politics have been omitted before their original publication.                                                 

"Richard Wright Biography." Mathematics Department. Web. 28 Mar. 2011.

Eudora Welty - Powerhouse

           In reading the ‘Powerhouse’ by Eudora Welty, I found it to be a very interesting short story.  The basic theme in the story is the power of the creative imagination.  Imagination is what gives Powerhouse his ability to cast a spell over his audience.  He draws his audience into reality through his voice and his piano and with the members of his band.  The energy that appears from Powerhouse is something beyond the limits of the ordinary existence.  The power that comes from him changes ordinary lives, allowing others to experience the world in a different way.  Powerhouse’s imagination enables him to give expression to his fears such as the jive story about the death of his wife and Uranus Knockwood, the singer who had taken Powerhouse’s place with his wife.  Powerhouse produces an imaginative reality that he may encounter and chase away, so that he can continue to function as a man of the world.  The setting contributes to the strength of the theme.  Powerhouse is a black musician playing in the segregated South, a place where black people cannot even come into the hall and dance to his music.  This gives added grief and gloom to the already depressing circumstances of the human condition.  Powerhouse understands the nature of his imagination, when the waitress asks him about the “real truth” of his wife and he tells her that the event didn’t happen.  He goes on to say that “Truth is something worse” – the real facts of humankind’s life are horrible.  Powerhouse believes that he has the ability to grasp the truth and then relate it to others.  The inference is that he will relate it as a musician through the medium of his music, through the jazz blues that he plays.  In this short story, Welty tries to accomplish a thoughtful version of the setting, her native Mississippi.  She uses the technique of presenting Powerhouse first through the voice of the small-town white narrator.  The narrator plainly represents the local feelings of this segregated community.  Powerhouse is a black man performing before an all-white audience.  He is the kind of person who will take one beyond the limits of his known existence and such people seem dangerous.  The word patterns are strong and lyrical in the opening section.  There is a stream of phrases and incomplete sentences that helps to create the excitement of the subject and to take the reader beyond the limits of an ordinary story.  Welty shows herself to be a master of dialogue, as the jive among the band members achieves its own kind of lyricism.  The use of language in this short story is a tribute to the creative power of the imagination.  This was a great story and I enjoyed reading it.                                          

Ronald L. Johnson. "Powerhouse." Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition. Salem Press, 2004. eNotes.com. 2006. 28 Mar, 2011

Eudora Welty - Introduction and Biography

                Eudora Welty was born on April 13, 1909 in Jackson, Mississippi.  She was the daughter of Christian Webb Welty and Chestina Andrews Welty.  Eudora Welty grew up in a close-knit and loving family.  She inherited a love for instruments that instruct and fascinate from her father.  She inherited a passion for reading and language from her mother.  She had two brothers with which she shared bonds of support, companionship, and humor.  She became the most recognized graduate of the Jackson Public School system.  She graduated from Jackson’s Central High School in 1925.  She attended Mississippi State College for Women in Columbus and then at the University of Wisconsin which is where she received her bachelor’s degree.  She went on to graduate from the Columbia University School of business.  She worked at WJDX radio station, wrote society columns for the Memphis Commercial Appeal and served as a Junior Publicity Agent for the Works Progress Administration.  Welty produced seven unique books in fourteen years.  Then the rate of her production came to a startling halt.  For more than a decade her writing was placed on the back burner because of personal tragedies.  She had to care for her two brothers with severe arthritis and her mother who had suffered from a stroke.  After her mother died in 1966, she returned to writing.  In 1936 her first short story appeared and she gradually began to be published in small, then regional and general circulation magazines.  She had many rewards such as the National Medal for Literature, the American Book Award, and an 6-time winner of the O. Henry Award for Short Stories and in 1969, a Pulitzer Prize.  She is known as the first Lady of Southern Literature because her fiction was usually set in the rural South.  She was also a talented and published photographer.  She died on July 23, 2001 in Jackson, Mississippi, her lifelong home, after a short illness and as the result of cardio-pulmonary failure.  She was buried in Jackson, Mississippi.                           

"About Eudora Welty." Women's History - Comprehensive Women's History Research Guide. Web. 27 Mar. 2011.

Marrs, Suzanne. Eudora Welty Foundation | Home. Web. 27 Mar. 2011.

John Steinbeck - Flight

                In the short story “Flight” by John Steinbeck there is a lot of symbolism.  Symbolism is used to portray something beyond itself.  In this short story it is used to represent or foreshadow the ending of the story.  The symbol that is used the most often is the color black.  Black usually represents death.  There are several examples of this in the story.  Some examples include the black handle on the long blade, Pepé’s black hair and the black jerky.  Another example is when Pepé puts  on his father’s black coat, which represents death.  He is literally killing himself when he covers himself with the black coat.  The path that Pepé travels on is described as a well-worn black path.  He is in fact taking the road of death by traveling on this path.  His appearance also helps to foreshadow the ending of the story.  Steinbeck describes Pepé as having a black hat that covers his black thatched hair.  He is also described as being dark, lean and tall.  The shack in which they live is portrayed as weather-beaten and very old.  The shack casts a large shadow to the North east.  The darkness of the shadow symbolizes death in the home.  Steinbeck’s use of black symbolism tells us that the main character, Pepé, is approaching death.  Another symbol that is used in the story is direction.  Direction is used to represent positive or negative effects.  The North and East are generally “good” directions.  I feel like this came about when the early man saw the sun rise in the East.  The directions South and West generally are “bad” directions.  This is because the sun sets in the West.  Height is also a very popular way of foreshadowing the conclusion of the story.  The direction up, which is also the way to heaven is generally “good.”  The direction down is bad because it is the way to hell.  This symbolism can be found when  Pepé is returning home.  He looks at his “weathered little shack” and notices the shadow.  The shadow that he sees is heading in the direction of North East.  Although the directions North and East are “good,” the fact that the shadow is there turn them “bad.”  In this situation, this means that evil is winning over goodness.  No matter which direction  Pepé turns he will fall to evil.  Another example is when Pepé watches the sun set in the West.  The sun is the bringer of all life and it is moving towards evil as well.  This means that it will be dark out and Pepé’s death is soon to come.  Steinbeck also uses symbolism through describing the trees on the mountain.  The tops of the trees were wind-bitten and dead.  So this means that the further Pepé travels up the mountain the closer he is to his foreseeable death.  Steinbeck also uses nature as a symbol.  In this short story the nature symbol is water.  Humans require water in order to live.  Water represents life.  This symbol is found with Pepé's water bag which hung over his horse’s shoulder.  The water leaked from the water bag onto the horse’s shoulder.  This could mean that his life was actually leaking away.  When the horse was shot it was in the same shoulder as his water bag.  Another example of nature symbolism is when Pepé travels up the mountain.  When he starts out he is traveling very close to the river.  The further that he travels on the path, he seems to turn more and more from the river.  This means that  Pepé is moving further away from life and closer to his foreseeable death.  This was an awesome story and I enjoyed reading it.               

        

Trejo, Oscar. "Literary Analysis: "Flight" by John Steinbeck 1 | GroundReport." Hyperlocal News & Opinion Around the World | GroundReport. 19 Apr. 2008. Web. 26 Mar. 2011.

"Flight Summary & Study Guide - John Steinbeck - ENotes.com." ENotes - Literature Study Guides, Lesson Plans, and More. Web. 26 Mar. 2011.

John Steinbeck - Introduction and Biography

                John Steinbeck was an American novelist, story writer, playwright, and an essayist.  He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.  He is best known for the novel ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ (1939).  This novel was generally considered to be a 20^th-century classic.  Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California in 1902.  His local region of Monterey Bay was later the setting for most of his fiction.  His father was a county treasurer and his mother was teacher.  Steinbeck learned to love books.  He attended the local high school and worked on farms and ranches during his vacations.  He had many jobs and sometimes he dropped out of college for whole quarters in order to finance his education.  In 1929, Steinbeck took a general zoology course at the Hopkins Marine station, Pacific Grove but he didn’t continue his studies any further – he always planned to be a writer.  His early poems and short stories appeared in diverse magazines.  He spent a short time as a laborer on the construction of Madison Square Garden in New York City.  Steinbeck took odd jobs while he was writing.  Some of the odd jobs that he had was an intern hood-carrier, intern painter, caretaker of an estate, surveyor, and a fruit-picker.  While he was a watchman of a house in the High Sierra, he wrote his first book, ‘Cup of Gold’ (1929).  The publisher had given him $250 in advance but the book failed to earn that much back.  In the early 1930s, Steinbeck met Edward Ricketts in Pacific Grove.  Ricketts was a marine biologist and his views on the interdependence of all life deeply influenced Steinbeck’s thinking.  His first three novels went unnoticed.  ‘Tortilla Flat’ (1935) was a humorous tale of pleasure-loving Mexican-Americans which brought him great recognition.  Steinbeck’s financial situation improved significantly.  He had earned $35 a week for a long time but now he was paid thousands of dollars for the film rights to Tortilla Flat.  Steinbeck served as a war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune in Great Britain and the Mediterranean area during World War II.  Steinbeck was married to Carol Henning for twelve years but their marriage ended in 1942.  The next year he married the singer Gwyndolyn Conger and they had two sons named Thom and John.  Their marriage ended with a divorce in 1949.  In 1950, he married Elaine (Anderson) Scott.  She was the independent daughter of a Texas oilman and the ex-wife of Zachery Scott, an actor.  Steinbeck served as an advisor to President Lyndon B. Johnson, whose Vietnam policies he agreed with.  The president asked for him to go to Vietnam to report on the war.  Steinbeck wrote for the newspaper Newsday a series of articles that divided his readers.  The New York post attacked him for betraying his open-minded past.  On December 20, 1968, John Steinbeck dies of a heart attack in New York.  He had started the work with eagerness but he never finished it.  His son John had problems in later years with drugs and alcohol.  He died in 1991.                                                              

"John Steinbeck Biography - Life, Family, Children, Story, School, Mother, Son, Book, Information, Born, House." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Web. 26 Mar. 2011.

"John Steinbeck - Biography". Nobelprize.org. 27 Mar 2011

Langston Hughes - On the Road

In life, we are often challenged with borders that are created by society and ourselves.  In our partial understanding of what those borders represent, we find ourselves restrained by our personality.  Racism and prejudices have afflicted society for many years.  Many of us have been judged and attacked for expressing our true selves.  In the short story, “On the road” by Langston Hughes we can visualize this racism and prejudice that Sargeant is dealing with.  This story uses scenic symbolism and imagery.  Hughes offers a gift to the readers: Open your heart and life will provide boundless abundance.  Hughes uses nature to demonstrate a distinctive relationship among the blacks and whites.  The snow and the night allows the story to be less disturbing and more interesting to everyone that reads the short story.  The main character, Sargeant, is left doubting the goodness of life.  The white people have overpowered the black population for almost two hundred years.  Sargeant was tired of fighting, tired of surviving, tired of hoping, and most of all tired of the white people who have overpowered and harassed his life.  Hughes uses anger and survival in this short story as well.  When these two things are combined they can be a powerful force when it comes to taking action against the destruction of society.  Limiting our expression of ourselves often leads to anger.  Once anger kicks in, then our survival mode kicks in, and that is when we become more separated from God then at any other time.  We can clearly see that Sargeant is struggling for survival.  He is rejected a number of times for a place to stay but then he finds himself at the front door of the church with hope that he may enter and stay warm overnight.  There he is rejected again but this time at the feet of a white church.  Sargeant was a very strong-minded man.  He was starving and tired but he certainly felt that at least the church should offer him a comforting, relaxing place to stay.  I think that Sargeant isn’t only trying to survive but he was also holding onto his faith.  Hughes uses Jesus Christ as a metaphor for how we experience life.  For Christians, Jesus was a savior who carried the burden of our sins and troubles to show us that God loves his children.  In this story, Sargeant is similar to Christ in a way that he must carry a heavy burden as well.  Once the church fell down we are given the image of Sargeant walking down the street with the stone pillar on his shoulder, this is very much like Christ as he carried the cross.  When the church came crashing down so did all of its values, beliefs, and ideas.  Once the church fell Jesus was freed from the cross.  It symbolizes the same for Sargeant because he was freed from his burden of being overpowered by the whites and standing up for his own needs.  Traditional church values conflict with each other when it comes to the acceptance of every human being.  Christ is described as a man of peace and love, who pursued to invite anyone regardless of race or sex into the kingdom of heaven.  In this story Hughes challenges Christianity by showing how judgmental and self-righteous the church has been throughout the years.  Through the Great Depression America struggled enormously.  This story opens our eyes to unconditional love and respect for humanity.  Hughes pays a special thanks to people like Jesus and Sargeant who have made our world a better place.  This is a very touching story because we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us. 

                                                                                  

"Analysis of Langston Hughes' On the Road." Web. 23 Mar 2011

"Analysis Of On the Road by Langston Hughes - Essays - Cmcain." Free Term Papers, Research Papers, Essays, Book Reports | OPPapers.com. Web. 23 Mar. 2011.

"On the Road by Langston Hughes Essays." MegaEssays.com - Essays, Essays and Term Paper! Web. 23 Mar. 2011.