--Week Eight--

Class Meeting
Iron Mask and Collar for Punishing Slaves, Brazil, 1817-1818
Source: Jacques Arago, Souvenirs d'un aveugle. Voyage autour du monde... par M. J. Arago (Paris, 1839-40), 
vol. 1, facing p. 119.
From The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas
by Jerome Handler and Michael Tuite
Sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the University of Virginia Library.
"Did you speak to him? Didn't you say anything to him? Something!" [said Sethe.]
"I couldn't, Sethe. I just... couldn't" [said Paul D.]
"Why!"
"I had a bit in my mouth."
   --From Toni Morrison, Beloved (84). 
This image is one of the many representations of a series of masks, bridles, and mouth bits created to silence women and slaves. For more, see the blog U.S. Slave HERE (Warning: nasty images). To see how the tradition continues, if much abated, HERE. (Thanks to HiccupsS for the link!) 

One of the many reasons why Butler's and especially Morrison's storytelling is important, therefore, is that they reclaim the power of language and representation for those who have been denied such a voice. Thus, Kindred touches on many "unspoken" issues that define present American culture.

Workshop for an essay on Kindred
  • Instructions for Essay 2 HERE 
Title
kindred>black and white America are kindred>family of choice rather than blood

Plot
whodunit>missing arm-scars>different scars>metaphor of white and black America / the legacy of slavery
  • Time traveling
         -juxtaposition of present and past>present not as different (yet different) than past-black time/double consciousness
         -metaphor for Middle Passage>time difference allows for the the normalization of violence and bondage
         -sf's grandfather paradox>symbiosis of slave and master

First person participant narrator
Dana as "author" of Kindred>a subject rather than object> giving voice to the voiceless>appropriating the gaze 

Characters 
-mostly static and so representative of specific worldviews. Quick Character Activity
-set up for comparison>Tom, Rufus, Kevin; Dana and Alice as doppelgangers > argues for environmental causes
Buckner Topsy Turvy 1901 doll.  Image and historical context below from Black Legacy Images.
Oral history of the doll: A slave mother designed this type of doll for her children because slave children were not allowed to play with white dolls. When white people were present slave children always had to play with the black doll. The black doll was the only legal doll black children could play with in America during slave times.














For Next Class (10/15--NO CLASS 10/8)
  1. Complete the Quiz on Literary Terms III on Blackboard based on THIS PRESENTATION
  2. Work on Essay 2. When you have completed the writing process, turn in