Known for its tragic portrayal of the Great Migration, William Attaway’s 1941 novel Blood on the Forge chronicles the experiences of three brothers in the industrial wasteland that was western Pennsylvania and challenges the idea of complacency. The novel narrates a classic portrayal of the Great Migration, the movement of blacks from destructive southern United States to the flourished, industrialized North in the period following World War I. The story of the three Moss brothers—Big Mat, Chinatown, and Melody provides the audience with a dark tale of industrialization, the myth of American dream, misogyny and immense character development.
William Alexander Attaway, author of Blood on The Forge was a writer, dramatist and songwriter. Attaway
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At the start of the story Big Mat, in a fit of rage kills the Mule that killed his mother. The family already impoverished and in an unfortunate situation finds themselves completely unable to cover their debts. Big Mat’s character is completely dependent on his forced, brute physical strength. Unlike his brothers, he seem thrive in the harsh work conditions of the south. His strength makes him relevant in the sharecropping lifestyle in a way that is lost in his brothers. When he migrates to the Industrial North he continues to thrive in his work environment and can be said to embody a machine. In the course of the novel, Big Mat is deputized bylaw enforcements and is given right by law to terrorize and suppress the white workers. With his newfound title, Big Mat gained an importance that he would have never reached in the oppressive state of the south. Scholars such as John Claborn agrees on Big Mat’s oppressive nature. He abused his power Big Mat like a lot of migrant workers during the great migration thrived in the working conditions of the Industrial south which ultimately led to his …show more content…
Women in the novel are portrayed as vessels for the male role, are one-dimensional having no real meaning apart from their one-liners and complaints. In one instance, Hattie states, “We jes niggers, makin’ the white man crop for him. Leave him makin’ his own crop, then we don’t end up owin’ him money every season”. Melody the narrator of the story describes this interaction by stating, “Hattie kept at Big Mat, driving him crazy with her talk…” (Attaway). This interaction reinforces the stereotype of the crazy, hysterical, nagging woman. This portrayal of the female characters as told by Melody reflects Attaway or at least the novels’ bigotry towards women. The novel, which was largely narrated through Melody’s perception, often misread situations regarding female characters. As the novel comes to a close, what personally stood out to me were the female characters, Hattie and Anna that fell by the wayside in the tale of the three
With Every Drop Of Blood by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier is based on the Civil War. In this novel they talked about the white-black relationships during this time period. In the novel Johnny’s father went off to fight in the war, and was shot at Cedar Creek to be sent back home for a short amount of time before he passed due to his injuries. When Johnny’s father died Johnny promised him that he would not run off to fight, that he would stay and help his mother with the farm, the house, and Johnny’s little brother Sam and his little sister Sarah. Before Johnny’s father passed Johnny asked him what the reason for the war was, and his father told him it was for ‘states rights’.
The novel showed a pivotal point prior to the Civil War and how these issues ultimately led to the fueling of quarrel between Americans. While such institutions of slavery no longer exist in the United States, the message resonates with the struggles many groups ostracized today who continue to face prejudice from those in higher
For the Kracha family, a slow rise to proud business ownership was ended by a series of events: (1) a summer of drunken abandon by Djuro; (2) his return to the steel mills (3) his daughter's (Mary) marriage to a fellow countryman also in the mills; and (4) his grandson's growing discontentment with unfair labor practices and abuses. These events in the Kracha family's lives become intertwined with the story of America's own transformation between the 1880s and the 1940s.
Mays, Kelly. A. “The Great Migration.” Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays.
The story also focuses in on Ruth Younger the wife of Walter Lee, it shows the place she holds in the house and the position she holds to her husband. Walter looks at Ruth as though he is her superior; he only goes to her for help when he wants to sweet talk his mama into giving him the money. Mama on the other hand holds power over her son and doesn’t allow him to treat her or any women like the way he tries to with Ruth. Women in this story show progress in women equality, but when reading you can tell there isn’t much hope and support in their fight. For example Beneatha is going to college to become a doctor and she is often doubted in succeeding all due to the fact that she is black African American woman, her going to college in general was odd in most people’s eyes at the time “a waste of money” they would say, at least that’s what her brother would say. Another example where Beneatha is degraded is when she’s with her boyfriend George Murchison whom merely just looks at her as arm
The theme that has been attached to this story is directly relevant to it as depicted by the anonymous letters which the main character is busy writing secretly based on gossip and distributing them to the different houses. Considering that people have an impression of her being a good woman who is quiet and peaceful, it becomes completely unbecoming that she instead engages in very abnormal behavior. What makes it even more terrible is the fact that she uses gossip as the premise for her to propagate her hate messages not only in a single household but across the many different households in the estate where she stays.
...n the trying time of the Great Migration. Students in particular can study this story and employ its principles to their other courses. Traditional character analysis would prove ineffective with this non-fiction because the people in this book are real; they are our ancestors. Isabel Wilkerson utilized varied scopes and extensive amounts of research to communicate a sense of reality that lifted the characters off the page. While she concentrated on three specifically, each of them served as an example of someone who left the south during different decades and with different inspirations. This unintentional mass migration has drastically changed and significantly improved society, our mindset, and our economics. This profound and influential book reveals history in addition to propelling the reader into a world that was once very different than the one we know today.
Within Tennessee Williams's story about love and abuse within marriage and challenging familial ties, there lie three very different characters that all see the world in vastly different ways. These members of a family that operate completely outside of our generation’s norms, are constantly unsure of themselves and their station within the binary not only of their familial unit, but within the gender binary that is established for them to follow. Throughout the story of the strange family, each character goes through a different arch that changes them irrevocably whether it is able to be perceived or not by those around them. The only male, Stanley is initially the macho force in the home who controls everything without question. He has no consequences for his actions against his wife and is never held accountable for treating the people around him poorly; this lasts until Blanche arrives. Blanche is an outwardly demure, but spirited young woman who after experiencing untold misfortune breaks mentally and decides to no longer care what others may think of her. She lives her life lavishly and foolishly by having dalliances with younger or richer men who shower her with gifts and attention to get sex from her all too willing form. Her effect on Stanley is one of temptation and challenge; she continually tries to convince her sister that she is too good for the man and in turn fosters a resentment for her in him. Stella acts as the antithesis of Stanley and Blanche’s extreme personalities. She is innocence and purity where they are the darkness that threatens to overtake her life. Throughout, Stella is a pawn that they both try to use against the other to no real avail as she is determined to make the best choice for herself. In th...
William Attaway's "Blood on the Forge" takes a dive into the steel mills of the 1920's and show that the slaves that were escaping from the south were in for a bigger mess than what they were already in when heading north. The North was gory and brutal to anyone that came to the mills. One had to be ready for the most excruciating working conditions. But to some African Americans, they thought at least they are getting paid. They didn't get paid near what they deserve so that helped the white get richer and the blacks stay poor. In "Blood on the Forge", the family starts off in a bad state and gets worse and worse as the book goes on. One really thinks how can it get any worse and Attaway keeps on answering that with more and more catastrophic
In the novel Ragtime, many aspects of the American society are explored. The reader gets an understanding of the history and hardships of different social classes, races, and cultures during the last century. A persistent theme established is the existence of the American dream. Doctorow expresses his fascination of the social mobility since it includes the impoverished and underprivileged. However, he highlights that when attempting to reach success, one is required to make sacrifices, negotiating his morality and identity. Tateh and Coalhouse are crucial examples of how the demands, prejudices, and opportunities of the American society can change a man’s mentality.
“Out of This Furnace” is a novel written by Thomas Bell, which entails the story of immigrant labor and a Slovak’s family immigration to America. In the beginning, the book focuses on George Kracha, who migrates to the U.S. in hopes to escape poverty and oppression in Hungaria. However, during his transit and through fault of his own, George finds himself with only fifty cents to continue his migration to Pennsylvania. George Kracha successfully arrives with his relatives and secures a position working for the railroad. Over time, George Kracha’s wife migrates to America, his family begins to grow, and Kracha shifts working from railroad to steel mills at Braddock. Kracha’s hope to obtain a better life in America becomes unseizable when he
She makes the argument that all women in the south, including slaves experienced many forms of oppression because of the patriarchal society of the south during the time, because without the oppression of all women then farmers would lose full authority. “Patriarchy was the bedrock upon which the slave society was founded, and slavery exaggerated the pattern of subjugation that patriarchy had established.”(p. 6) She makes the notion that the plantation wives and female slaves shared similar experiences with unequal treatment. The book even theorizes that the plantation mistress were in more bondage than female slaves were because she had no other person to share her experiences with. Whereas, the slaves all had commonality among them and experienced there hardships together as a family rather than
In the introduction, Young makes it abundantly clear that in this novel he aims to make his own views surrounding public, and to an extent social history, known. He begins by posing the question “how does an ordinary person win a place in history?” (vii). Automatically I recalled the saying that “the victor writes history.” Historically, the victors and the writers of history have been those in positions of power on a particular side of a conflict. The everyday people who are the true forces behind these events unfortunately fade into obscurity and become the lost heroes and heroines of history. Often, it is not until specific groups learn of a particular person in history that attempts are made to have that person remembered. Such was the case with Crispus Attucks, a half African half Native American victim of the Boston Massacre, by the African American community of Boston. By shedding light on the story of Crispus Attucks, the African American community was ab...
All three of the main female characters are treated in a way that many would consider rude towards any human being, despite their various classifications. Big Mama has to constantly endure Big Daddy’s cussing and ungrateful behaviour towards her. She shows him as much love as one person can show, and in return, she is certainly notified of the want for her to be gone from Big Daddy. In Act two, it is also assumed her somewhat “bossy” behaviour is her wanting to take over the plantation when, in reality, it’s how she shows she cares. It is also assumed she doesn’t love Big Daddy even though everything she does is essentially to please him and make him happy. This is explicitly shown in the last act after she finds out Big Daddy definitely has cancer and she is even more willing to stand up for Big Daddy when it becomes obvious Mae and Gooper are just trying to take over control of the plantation when he dies, when he hasn’t died yet. She asserts her position as his wife with pride. The treatment of Maggie doesn’t come from Brick, who treats her in an ignorant fashion through virtually silence, but more so from the rest of his family. She is treated different because she has not yet had children. This causes many unfair and uncalled for statements concerning her ability to be a good wife and her personality. She is seen as a bad woman by the majority of the family when in
Rebekka, Lina, Florens, and Sorrow all experience the unimportant role of females during this time. The four women live in fear for their lives, and are subject to the merciless world filled with men and hierarchy. It does not matter whether you are a slave, free, European, or African. If you are a woman, you are presumed to aid for others, and anything that you want to do or be in life is disregarded. Women are not given the chance to truly live they way that they want to, and are stripped of their right to freedom and an unrestricted