Gwendolyn Bennett and Jean Toomer approach the use of violence in their writing from two opposite angles. In Bennett’s poem “Hatred”, this violence is explicitly stated against white people and the institution of racism. Toomer, on the other hand, employs this violence in a domestic context. Both poems make use of images of weapons and elements of nature. These images reconcile two completely different works of literature by establishing them firmly within the culture of the American South.
In the first section of “Hatred”, Bennett writes, “I shall hate you/Like a dart of singing steel/Shot through still air/At eventide” (Bennett 223). These lines evoke the image and sound of a gunshot. The reader has no context for the identity of the object of Bennett’s hatred; however, it is a hatred that is so strong that she is tempted to kill. This image also departs from other descriptions of women in literature, if the reader assumes that the voice in this poem is either that of Bennett or of another woman. The speaker in this poem has an uncommon strength and boldness; she is unafraid to commit an act of violence for which she will receive severe repercussions, such as lynching. However, she cannot act out her desires, so she resolves to hate. She wants to hate the white people so that her hatred hurts them. She cannot kill them; therefore she must fulfill her violent desires in the most satisfactory way possible.
Bennett continues: “Or solemnly/As pines are sober/When they stand etched/Against the sky” (Bennett 223). These lines give the reader an opposite sense of the speaker’s emotion. While in the first four lines, the speaker was militant and wanted so desperately to kill, in these lines, the reader sees a calmer, more refi...
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The instances of violence in these passages are reactions to the conditions of everyday black life. In Gwendolyn Bennett’s poem “Hatred,” she addresses the suppressed anger and hatred that the speaker, who undoubtedly speaks for much of the black population, wishes to be able to express through violence, but is barred from such reactionary behavior because of the construction of American society. In Jean Toomer’s short prose passage “Carma” the violence is in a domestic context. Bane’s murder of the man in the search party occurs because he believes that he slept with his wife Carma. The use of elements of nature is also approached differently, especially that of pine. While Bennett refers to pine trees as a symbol of upstanding pride and dignity, Toomer sees the pine needles for what they are—pine needles, but an important part of the Southern identity.
Douglass, Frederick. The Heroic Slave. In Violence In the Black Imagination. Ed, Ronald T. Takaki. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
In The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, emotional violence takes an aggressive toll not only on Douglass, but also his master Mr. Covey, his family, and fellow slaves. During his time with Covey, Douglass was affected deeply by the strain of slavery, especially in spirit and ways of hope. Mr. Covey was infamous for his reputation as a ‘‘nigger-breaker” and induced fear into slaves, emotionally scarring them (Douglass 53).
When an emotion is believed to embody all that brings bliss, serenity, effervescence, and even benevolence, although one may believe its encompassing nature to allow for generalizations and existence virtually everywhere, surprisingly, directly outside the area love covers lies the very antithesis of love: hate, which in all its forms, has the potential to bring pain and destruction. Is it not for this very reason, this confusion, that suicide bombings and other acts of violence and devastation are committed in the name of love? In Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, the reader experiences this tenuity that is the line separating love and hate in many different forms and on many different levelsto the extent that the line between the two begins to blur and become indistinguishable. Seen through Ruth's incestuous love, Milkman and Hagar's relationship, and Guitar's love for African-Americans, if love causes destruction, that emotion is not true love; in essence, such destructive qualities of "love" only transpire when the illusion of love is discovered and reality characterizes the emotion to be a parasite of love, such as obsession or infatuation, something that resembles love but merely inflicts pain on the lover.
Cruelty: the Double-edged Sword “Where does discipline end? Where does cruelty begin? Somewhere between these, thousands of children inhabit a voiceless hell” (Francois Mauriac, Brainyquote 2016). These statements posed by French novelist Francois Mauriac can be applied to Toni Morrison’s Beloved. The novel centers around Sethe, a former African American slave, who lives in rural Cincinnati, Ohio with her daughter named Denver.
‘“Was it hard? I hope she didn't die hard.’ Sethe shook her head. 'Soft as cream. Being alive was the hard part’” (Morrison 8). Paul D questions the absence of Baby Suggs as he and Sethe sit on the front porch of 124. In the early pages of Toni Morrison’s book, Beloved, the theme of mercy is immediately present and stressed. The characters of Beloved live with the traumatic effects of living through slavery, and the value of life terrorizes their subconscious. The epicenter of Morrison’s book is Sethe killing her daughter out of love and mercy. Mercy is a powerful motive that drives human instinct, especially that of a mother’s psyche. Exploring this concept, Sethe’s actions were extreme, but not unique. They were actually explainable and even defendable.
Leonard, K. D. (2009). African American women poets and the power of the word. The Cambridge Companion to African American Women's Literature, 168-187.
...Walt Whitman’s Alabama birds, Harper Lee’s Alabama presents a bleak picture of a narrow world torn by hatred , injustice, violence and cruelty, and we lament to see ‘what man has made of man’. It brings out forcefully the condition of Negro subculture in the white world where a Negro, as dark as a mockingbird, is accepted largely as a servant or at best as an entertainer (Dave 245).
As this poem characterizes the view of a native woman expressing feelings of passion relating to her culture, it also criticizes society, in particular Christianity, as the speaker is experiencing feelings of discontent with the outcome of residential schools. It does not directly criticize the faith, but through the use of a heavy native dialect and implications to the Christian faith it becomes simple to read the speakers emotions.
In this book, it shows examples of racial strife including segregation, physical attacks and emotional abuse. The Logan family was treated indescribably. The book starts showing racial strife when the children of the black family have to go to a different school than the white children for that very reason. This book shows the way racism started in the 1930’s and how much it’s changed compared to today.
In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, love proves to be a dangerous and destructive force. Upon learning that Sethe killed her daughter, Beloved, Paul D warns Sethe “Your love is too thick” (193). Morrison proved this statement to be true, as Sethe’s intense passion for her children lead to the loss of her grasp on reality. Each word Morrison chose is deliberate, and each sentence is structured with meaning, which is especially evident in Paul D’s warning to Sethe. Morrison’s use of the phrase “too thick”, along with her short yet powerful sentence structure make this sentence the most prevalent and important in her novel. This sentence supports Paul D’s side on the bitter debate between Sethe and he regarding the theme of love. While Sethe asserts that the only way to love is to do so passionately, Paul D cites the danger in slaves loving too much. Morrison uses a metaphor comparing Paul D’s capacity to love to a tobacco tin rusted shut. This metaphor demonstrates how Paul D views love in a descriptive manner, its imagery allowing the reader to visualize and thus understand Paul D’s point of view. In this debate, Paul D proves to be right in that Sethe’s strong love eventually hurts her, yet Paul D ends up unable to survive alone. Thus, Morrison argues that love is necessary to the human condition, yet it is destructive and consuming in nature. She does so through the powerful diction and short syntax in Paul D’s warning, her use of the theme love, and a metaphor for Paul D’s heart.
In the 500 word passage reprinted below, from the fictional novel Beloved, Toni Morrison explains the pent-up anger and aggression of a man who is forced to keep a steady stance when in the presence of his white masters. She uses simple language to convey her message, yet it is forcefully projected. The tone is plaintively matter-of-fact; there is no dodging the issue or obscure allusions. Because of this, her work has an intensity unparalleled by more complex writing.
These repeated words show the reader that the narrator identifying himself as a “colored” man is sincerely shameful and desires to abandon his colored race. In addition, the word choice of debating, shame, forsake, and inferiority in the context conveys a feeling of negative categorization to the reader while the narrator is talking about the African American race. This projects the narrator’s idea, which is carried throughout the novel, that being a “colored” man in society is looked down upon and shameful. In the beginning of the novel when the narrator is conversing with his mother for his true identity, there is a sense of shame as the narrator says, “ She must have felt that I was examining her, for she hid her face in my hair…” (8). Also when the narrators mother talks about his white father, a positive sense of categorization is delivered as the mother says, “ No, I am not white you- your father is one of the greatest men in the country- the best blood of the south is in you” (8). These two quotes early in the novel connect to the narrator’s general idea that being an African American in society is categorized as shameful and negative while being white is classified as the “best” and “great.” This idea is relevant to the social issue of racial
As much as society does not want to admit, violence serves as a form of entertainment. In media today, violence typically has no meaning. Literature, movies, and music, saturated with violence, enter the homes of millions everyday. On the other hand, in Beloved, a novel by Toni Morrison, violence contributes greatly to the overall work. The story takes place during the age of the enslavement of African-Americans for rural labor in plantations. Sethe, the proud and noble protagonist, has suffered a great deal at the hand of schoolteacher. The unfortunate and seemingly inevitable events that occur in her life, fraught with violence and heartache, tug at the reader’s heart-strings. The wrongdoings Sethe endures are significant to the meaning of the novel.
An Analysis of Jean Toomer's Cane In the prose fiction Cane: Jean Toomer uses the background of the Black American in the South to assist in establishing the role of the modernist black writer. While stylistic characteristics such as ambiguity of words and the irony of the contradictory sentences clearly mask this novel as a modernist work. Toomer draws upon his experiences and his perspective of the life of Blacks in Georgia to create a setting capable of demonstrating the difficulties facing the twentieth-century Black author. This presentation is both vivid and straightforward and while acknowledges the fall of slavery, it also examines the after-effects which remain in American life.
Gwendolyn Brook’s “Ballad of Pearl May Lee” came from her book called Street in Bronzeville. This book exemplifies Brook’s “dual place in American literature” (Smith, 2). It is associated with Modernist poetry, as well as the Harlem Renaissance. This book is known for its theme of victimizing the poor, black woman. “Ballad of Pearl May Lee” is a poem that uses tone to represent the complex mood of the ballad. While tone and mood are often used interchangeably, there are differences even though they often work together in a poem. A poem’s mood refers to the atmosphere or state of mind that the poem takes on. This is often conveyed through the tone, which is the style or manner of expression through writing. In this poem, Brooks uses tone to enhance the mood. This paper will shed light on the idea that the mood of the poem is affected by the tone in several ways in order to make the mood inconsistent. Some of the ways that tone does this is by several episodic shifts in the scene of the poem, the repetition of stanzas at the end of the poem, the use of diction, and the change in the speaker’s stance throughout the poem. These poetic techniques enhance the speaker’s current feeling of self-pity and revengeful satisfaction by her mixed emotions associated with this reflection.