Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Parenthetical Passages
Besides the brilliant alliteration in my title, what more do you want to know? Well, the first time in this chapter where current Wright breaks in to talk about past Wright, he discusses the continued issue of racial tension that I suppose he had hoped to avoid by coming to the north. Instead of an active, tangible tension that broke out into violence or confrontation, the tension in the north is mainly in the psyche, breaking a man down from the inside. One of the main concepts present Wright discusses in his tale of the north is the concept of self-hate. Because the whites hate the blacks and because they are a part of this culture that hates them, they begin to hate themselves. They enter into a vicious cycle where they hate themselves because the whites hate them, but refuse to show their self-loathing for fear of allowing the whites satisfaction. Because of these contrasting pressures, blacks are tense and nervous, only further satisfying the stereotypes whites have of them. Wright himself is not immune from this vicious cycle, but engages in dreams that are never realized, and hopes of organizing the blacks that eventually lead to displacement of his disappointment and self-hate on the blacks around him.
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3 comments:
I think you did a better job of explaining some of the complexities in that section by slimming it down. I do think that you're good so far as the self hate and all of that goes. What i'm not sure about is where his own own nervousness and that of Southern blacks generally come from. I think his inability to adapt and understand whether the apathy of whites will turn into racism or continue to be oblivious disregard.
I don't think the slow sanding away of sanity is purely a result of the north. I think the same process is undertaken in the south, but it's the direct product of the tangible racial violence, not the more subtle racial inequity found in the north (see Wright's experience as a hospital janitor). Wright experiences a disturbance of the psyche in the north and the south, the difference being that the south's version of racial insanity is more explicit, even enforced.
This is a very clear and thorough analysis, especially in your summary of Wright's feelings on self-hate. I wonder if there are parts of this country where minorities still feel that way, maybe not blacks but Mexicans, maybe? Being the white girl I am, I don't really know, but that would be an interesting thing to discuss.
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