MDDM Washington

[public domain]

  Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net> wrote: I'm not one of
them but still ask myself what was Pynchon up to here?

P. (middle of the night here)

 

Middle of a mad party here, the Americans have taken the cup. 

To get at what P is up to, I suggest reading Washington. Not George or the Post, but Irving. Yup, Tony Tanner hits all the nails on the head in his last book. Of course we can't discuss it. 

 

 

 

http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1978/2/78.02.04.x.html

 

Questions for Discussion: Charles Chesnutt's Fiction 

I. Conjure Stories (p. 1-31, 47-67) 
1) Charles Chesnutt's conjure stories (p. 1-31, 57-67) are filled with non-realistic activities (people who turn into trees or animals, haunted vineyards, and various acts of magic, or conjuration). Why do you suppose Chesnutt employs these non-realistic frameworks to explore a very realistic subject--the horror of slavery? What does this imply about the way he believes slavery and racism can best be understood and comprehended? Whose approach do you find more effective--realistic writers like Jacobs and Douglass, or those who imply the fantastic or mythical (such as Chesnutt and as we shall see later, Morrison)? In what ways does employing these non-realistic or supernatural events shift the power basis away from Euro-American systems of belief and knowledge? 

2) What reasons can you think of for why Chesnutt chose to write his conjure stories in dialect? What effect did this have on you as a reader? Did you find it difficult to read the stories? Did you have to read them out loud? Could Chesnutt be trying to make us experience what many individuals (including new slaves) experienced on a daily basis--what it feels like to take one's place within a language and culture that is "foreign" to you? Would there have been better ways for Chesnutt to make this point? What other reasons can you think of for why he wrote these stories this way? 

3) What do you make of Julius? At times does Chesnutt come close to endorsing the racist stereotype of African Americans as "ignorant," "child-like," "superstitious," or "primitive"? But just how "ignorant" is Julius? In the end, who seems to triumph--John with his northern, knowing, intellectual ways, or Julius with his "superstitious nonsense"? 

4) Why does Annie understand the true meaning of Julius' stories, while John does not? Does Chesnutt have a larger point to make through this portrayal of Annie and John? 

5) How does the relationship between Julius and Annie/John change over the course of the conjure stories? Do Annie and John gain more respect for Julius' point of view? Is this change meant to imply a rapprochement between North and South in the post-Civil War period?


II. Other Stories 
6) While Chesnutt was writing, a school of literature known as the plantation school was popular. In this post Civil War fiction (produced mainly by racist Southern writers such as Charles Nelson Page), slavery was shown as a benevolent institution. Slaves were portrayed as happily going about their work in the fields during the day, and dancing on the plantation to spirited songs in the evening. Are stories like "Sis' Becky's Pickaninny" or "Po Sandy" or "The Passing of Grandison" meant to undermine or support this view of slavery? 

7) "The Passing of Grandison" passes in a number of ways. Which characters appear to be passing? What are they passing as? How does this story pass (or fool) us as readers? What seems to be the point of this story? 

8) In these stories, is Chesnutt writing about the past (the time period of slavery), or the present (reconstruction and the post Civil War era)? Can past and present be separated?

American Lit. Yup, that's what Pynchon is up to. I guess that's just a but too obvious. 

 

Postironiclly yours, 

 

Boquita




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