The Hero’s Journey
The Mono-Myth
Text Adapted from Coverage by Chris Vogler
The Mono-Myth
• a community is threatened by evil
• a selfless hero emerges to renounce temptations and carry out the task
• aided by fate and a mentor, his victory restores the community to its paradisiacal condition
– These mythic elements are common to the legends, folklore and fairy tales of all cultures
THE HERO IS INTRODUCED IN HIS ORDINARY WORLD.
• The writer creates a contrast by showing him in his ordinary world first
• Most stories take place in a special world, a world that is new and alien to its hero
THE CALL TO ADVENTURE
• The hero is presented with:
– a problem,
– challenge,
– or an adventure
HERO IS INITIALLY RELUCTANT
• Often at this point, the hero balks at the threshold of adventure.
• After all, he or she is facing the greatest of all fears -- fear of the unknown
THE HERO IS ENCOURAGED BY A MENTOR
• The mentor gives advice and sometimes magical weapons
• The mentor can only go so far with the hero
• Eventually the hero must face the unknown by himself
• Sometimes the mentor has to give the hero a swift kick in the pants to get the adventure going
THE HERO PASSES THE FIRST THRESHOLD
• He fully enters the special world of his story for the first time
• This is the moment at which the adventure gets going
• The hero is now committed to his journey... and there's no turning back
THE HERO IS TESTED AND GETS NEEDED HELP
• The hero makes allies and enemies in the special world
• and faces challenges and tests that are part of his training
THE HERO REACHES THE INNERMOST CAVE
• The hero comes at last to a dangerous place, often deep underground, where the object of his quest is hidden.
• He must confront his or hers worst fears... and overcome them
THE HERO ENDURES THE SUPREME ORDEAL
• He faces the possibility of death. This is a critical moment in any story, an ordeal in which the hero appears to die and is born again.
• We are temporarily depressed, and then we are revived by the hero's resurrection
THE HERO SIEZES THE “SWORD”
• The hero now takes possession of the treasure he's come seeking
– a special weapon
– an elixir which can heal the wounded land
– knowledge and experience that leads to greater understanding and a reconciliation with hostile forces
• The hero may settle a conflict
– with his father
– with nemesis.
– may also be reconciled with a woman. Often she is the treasure he's come to win or rescue, and there is often a love scene or sacred marriage at this point
THE ROAD BACK
• The hero is pursued by the vengeful forces from whom he has stolen the elixir or the treasure
• If the hero has not yet managed to reconcile with his father or the gods etc., they may come raging after him at this point
RESURRECTION
• The hero emerges from the special world, transformed by his experience.
• There is often a replay here of the mock death-and-rebirth as the hero once again faces death and survives
• He is transformed by his experience
RETURN WITH THE ELIXIR
• The hero comes back to his ordinary world, with the elixir, treasure, or some lesson from the special world
• Unless he comes back with the elixir or some boon to mankind, he's doomed to repeat the adventure until he does
• Many comedies use this ending as a foolish character refuses to learn his lesson and embarks on the same folly that got him in trouble in the first place
• The hero earns:
• treasure
• or love
• or knowledge
• or a good story to tell
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Notes on Invisible Man
Written in the politically and socially turbulent 1940s, Invisible Man is one of the definitive novels of the African-American experience; it is also one of the definitive novels for all Americans. The issues Ellison so powerfully addresses are those that confront everyone who lives in the modern world: not only racism but the very question of personal identity, our frustrated impulse to assert ourselves in a world which is metaphorically blind. Ellison's hero is invisible within the larger culture because he is black, but his feelings can easily be understood by all those who experience the anonymity of modern life. Shortly before his death Ellison acknowledged the fact that his novel had expanded the very meaning of the word "invisible." Invisibility, he said, "touches anyone who lives in a big metropolis." (New Yorker, 5/2/94)
The novel's nameless narrator (the Invisible Man) is representative of many intelligent young African-Americans of his generation. Born and raised in the rural South, he is a star pupil at a college for black students. He dreams of racial uplift through humility and hard work, a doctrine preached by the school and the larger Southern culture. When his innocent idealism lands him in trouble, he comes to understand the hypocrisy behind the school's professed philosophy.
The naive young man is "educated" by being slowly disabused of all his ideals. Despite this, in the end he chooses to reject cynicism and hatred and to embrace a philosophy of hope. Ellison wanted his novel to transcend the rage and hopelessness of the protest novel and assert a world of possibility, however remote. It is surreal because "life is surreal," and it is funny—often hilariously so—because "what else was there to sustain our will to persevere but laughter?" [p. xv]. The novel also reflects the rhetorical richness of the African-American culture, using a wide range of idiomatic styles. Ellison's anti-realism stood out at a time when realism was the dominant fictional style, particularly in the protest novel. Through it he asserts the excitement of human experience in a world in which the unexpected is always happening.
“In our society, it is not unusual for a Negro to experience a sensation that he does not exist in the real world at all. He seems rather to exist in the nightmarish fantasy of the white American mind as a phantom that the white mind seeks unceasingly, by means both crude and subtle, to slay.” (“An American Dilemma: A Review,” Shadow and Act)
Often described as a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story, Invisible Man is the tale of a black man’s search for identity and visibility in white America. Convinced that his existence depends on gaining the support, recognition, and approval of whites—whom he has been taught to view as powerful, superior beings who control his destiny—the narrator spends nearly 20 years trying to establish his humanity in a society that refuses to see him as a human being. Ultimately, he realizes that he must create his own identity, which rests not on the acceptance of whites, but on his own acceptance of the past.
Published in 1952, more than a decade before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 declared racial segregation illegal, Invisible Man spans approximately 20 years, tracing the narrator’s life from his high school graduation in Greenwood, South Carolina, to his involvement in the Harlem Riot of 1943. By tracing the narrator’s journey from the rural South to the urban North, the novel emulates the movement of the slave narratives, autobiographies written by formerly enslaved black Africans that trace their escape routes from bondage in the South to freedom in the North. This fact is important to our understanding of Invisible Man, because allusions to Frederick Douglass (like the narrator’s grandfather) symbolize the ghost of slavery alluded to at several critical points in the novel.
The narrator’s path also traces the path of thousands of Southern blacks who moved to the North during the 1930s and 40s in search of better jobs and new opportunities during the Great Migration.
Call and response—a concept rooted in the traditional Negro sermons in which the pastor’s impassioned call elicits an equally impassioned response from the congregation—is one of the defining elements of African American literature. With this in mind, Invisible Man can be read as a response to Langston Hughes’ poem, “Harlem,” which poses the question, “What happens to a dream deferred? . . . Does it explode?” According to Ellison, who also explores the myth of the American Dream, the answer is a resounding, “Yes!” In addition to Langston Hughes, the two authors who had the greatest influence on Ellison’s writing style were T. S. Eliot and Richard Wright. Ellison was especially intrigued with Eliot’s Wasteland, a poem that explores the spiritual wasteland of contemporary society, and with Wright’s acclaimed protest novel, Native Son, and his nonfiction work, 12 Million Black Voices, which Ellison felt was even more powerful than Native Son. Ellison was also influenced by H.G. Wells’ science fiction novel, The Invisible Man, and Richard Wright’s short story, “The Man Who Lived Underground.”
A complex, multi-layered novel, Invisible Man can be read as an allegory (a story with both a literal and symbolic meaning that can be read, understood, and interpreted at several levels) that traces the narrator’s perilous journey from innocence to experience and from blind ignorance to enlightened awareness. Invisible Man can also be read as a quest narrative (mono-myth). Like Homer’s Odyssey and Dante’s Divine Comedy—both of which are alluded to in the novel—Invisible Man involves a symbolic journey to the underworld, where the narrator must meet and defeat various monsters—such as Brother Jack—and overcome seemingly impossible trials in order to return home.
Ellison’s use of inverted reality, creating a world that mirrors the reality of the white world, is a key structural element in Invisible Man. In the narrator’s world, black is white, up is down, light is darkness, and insanity is sanity. This structural device is used to illustrate that blacks, due to their perceived inferior status in American society, often experience a radically different reality than whites, creating the illusion that blacks and whites live in two different worlds. The white man’s American dream is the black man’s nightmare, and behavior deemed normal for whites is deemed abnormal (or crazy) for blacks. A key example is the novel’s closing scene: The narrator returns to his underground home, the basement (coal cellar) of a whites-only apartment building. Although this can be viewed as a physical move down into darkness and despair, in the narrator’s inverted reality, his return to his underground habitat illustrates a psychological move up towards awareness and enlightenment.
Unlike conventional novels that present a series of related sequential events, Invisible Man consists of a series of seemingly unrelated scenes or episodes—often expressed in the form of stories or sermons—linked only by the narrator’s comments and observations. In this way, the structure of the novel mirrors the structure of a jazz composition, players stepping forward to perform their impromptu solos, then stepping back to rejoin their group.
The structure also emulates the oral tradition of preliterate societies. Passed down orally from generation to generation, their stories embodied a people’s culture and history. In the novel, each character’s story can be viewed as a lesson that contributes to the narrator’s growth and awareness, bringing him closer to an understanding of his own people’s culture and history.
(Notes)
The novel's nameless narrator (the Invisible Man) is representative of many intelligent young African-Americans of his generation. Born and raised in the rural South, he is a star pupil at a college for black students. He dreams of racial uplift through humility and hard work, a doctrine preached by the school and the larger Southern culture. When his innocent idealism lands him in trouble, he comes to understand the hypocrisy behind the school's professed philosophy.
The naive young man is "educated" by being slowly disabused of all his ideals. Despite this, in the end he chooses to reject cynicism and hatred and to embrace a philosophy of hope. Ellison wanted his novel to transcend the rage and hopelessness of the protest novel and assert a world of possibility, however remote. It is surreal because "life is surreal," and it is funny—often hilariously so—because "what else was there to sustain our will to persevere but laughter?" [p. xv]. The novel also reflects the rhetorical richness of the African-American culture, using a wide range of idiomatic styles. Ellison's anti-realism stood out at a time when realism was the dominant fictional style, particularly in the protest novel. Through it he asserts the excitement of human experience in a world in which the unexpected is always happening.
“In our society, it is not unusual for a Negro to experience a sensation that he does not exist in the real world at all. He seems rather to exist in the nightmarish fantasy of the white American mind as a phantom that the white mind seeks unceasingly, by means both crude and subtle, to slay.” (“An American Dilemma: A Review,” Shadow and Act)
Often described as a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story, Invisible Man is the tale of a black man’s search for identity and visibility in white America. Convinced that his existence depends on gaining the support, recognition, and approval of whites—whom he has been taught to view as powerful, superior beings who control his destiny—the narrator spends nearly 20 years trying to establish his humanity in a society that refuses to see him as a human being. Ultimately, he realizes that he must create his own identity, which rests not on the acceptance of whites, but on his own acceptance of the past.
Published in 1952, more than a decade before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 declared racial segregation illegal, Invisible Man spans approximately 20 years, tracing the narrator’s life from his high school graduation in Greenwood, South Carolina, to his involvement in the Harlem Riot of 1943. By tracing the narrator’s journey from the rural South to the urban North, the novel emulates the movement of the slave narratives, autobiographies written by formerly enslaved black Africans that trace their escape routes from bondage in the South to freedom in the North. This fact is important to our understanding of Invisible Man, because allusions to Frederick Douglass (like the narrator’s grandfather) symbolize the ghost of slavery alluded to at several critical points in the novel.
The narrator’s path also traces the path of thousands of Southern blacks who moved to the North during the 1930s and 40s in search of better jobs and new opportunities during the Great Migration.
Call and response—a concept rooted in the traditional Negro sermons in which the pastor’s impassioned call elicits an equally impassioned response from the congregation—is one of the defining elements of African American literature. With this in mind, Invisible Man can be read as a response to Langston Hughes’ poem, “Harlem,” which poses the question, “What happens to a dream deferred? . . . Does it explode?” According to Ellison, who also explores the myth of the American Dream, the answer is a resounding, “Yes!” In addition to Langston Hughes, the two authors who had the greatest influence on Ellison’s writing style were T. S. Eliot and Richard Wright. Ellison was especially intrigued with Eliot’s Wasteland, a poem that explores the spiritual wasteland of contemporary society, and with Wright’s acclaimed protest novel, Native Son, and his nonfiction work, 12 Million Black Voices, which Ellison felt was even more powerful than Native Son. Ellison was also influenced by H.G. Wells’ science fiction novel, The Invisible Man, and Richard Wright’s short story, “The Man Who Lived Underground.”
A complex, multi-layered novel, Invisible Man can be read as an allegory (a story with both a literal and symbolic meaning that can be read, understood, and interpreted at several levels) that traces the narrator’s perilous journey from innocence to experience and from blind ignorance to enlightened awareness. Invisible Man can also be read as a quest narrative (mono-myth). Like Homer’s Odyssey and Dante’s Divine Comedy—both of which are alluded to in the novel—Invisible Man involves a symbolic journey to the underworld, where the narrator must meet and defeat various monsters—such as Brother Jack—and overcome seemingly impossible trials in order to return home.
Ellison’s use of inverted reality, creating a world that mirrors the reality of the white world, is a key structural element in Invisible Man. In the narrator’s world, black is white, up is down, light is darkness, and insanity is sanity. This structural device is used to illustrate that blacks, due to their perceived inferior status in American society, often experience a radically different reality than whites, creating the illusion that blacks and whites live in two different worlds. The white man’s American dream is the black man’s nightmare, and behavior deemed normal for whites is deemed abnormal (or crazy) for blacks. A key example is the novel’s closing scene: The narrator returns to his underground home, the basement (coal cellar) of a whites-only apartment building. Although this can be viewed as a physical move down into darkness and despair, in the narrator’s inverted reality, his return to his underground habitat illustrates a psychological move up towards awareness and enlightenment.
Unlike conventional novels that present a series of related sequential events, Invisible Man consists of a series of seemingly unrelated scenes or episodes—often expressed in the form of stories or sermons—linked only by the narrator’s comments and observations. In this way, the structure of the novel mirrors the structure of a jazz composition, players stepping forward to perform their impromptu solos, then stepping back to rejoin their group.
The structure also emulates the oral tradition of preliterate societies. Passed down orally from generation to generation, their stories embodied a people’s culture and history. In the novel, each character’s story can be viewed as a lesson that contributes to the narrator’s growth and awareness, bringing him closer to an understanding of his own people’s culture and history.
(Notes)
Mono-Myth Archetypes
ARCHETYPES
I. Hero - The Hero affects change through invention or discovery. The Hero is called out to embark on a Sacred Journey which will forever change his or her world. It is through the eyes of the Hero that we experience the Journey.
II. Herald - The Herald announces the Call to Adventure and/or issues the Challenge to our Hero. The Herald can take virtually any possible form or incarnation. Once the call and/or challenged has been made by the Herald, the Hero must then choose to accept, reject, or pause in reluctance to consider the Call to Adventure and/or Challenge.
It is important to note that the Herald can appear at any point during the Hero's Journey.
III. Wise Man/Woman - The Wise Man/Woman (usually supernatural/otherworldly in nature) guides the Hero towards his or her Path. The Wise Man/Woman offers instruction and insight, and may even equip the Hero with a magical gift/tool/weapon that will aid in the Hero in his or her Journey.
The Wise Man/Woman is a mentor who can/will only journey so far with the Hero before he or she must take their appropriate absence. Their purpose is to guide the Hero toward his or her Call to Adventure.
IV. Threshold Guardian - The Threshold Guardian guards the Gate to the Unknown. This Guardian must be challenged and defeated through bargaining or death in order for the Hero to move forward in his Journey.
The Guardian's defeat and the crossing of the Threshold represent the Point of No Return. The Hero has accepted his Call and must now see it through.
V. Magical Helper - The Magical Helper or Helpers are allies that the Hero gains along his Journey into the Unknown/Abyss. These Helpers can offer insight into the local terrain, grant magical assistance/aid, offer magical gifts, and/or simply offer a Ministry of Presence.
VI. Shapeshifter - The purpose of the Shapeshifter is to bewilder, confuse, help, delay, progress, regress, and otherwise leave a Hero dumbfounded. The Shapeshifter contributes uncertainty, doubt, and tension to the Journey. Often the true intentions of the Shapeshifter are never known or understood until the last possible moment, if ever at all.
The Shapeshifter can be an ally, an enemy, or even part of the Hero himself.
VII. The Shadow - The Shadow is the reflection of the Hero's Darkest desires, rejected attributes, and repressed/untapped energies/resources. Often it is the mirrored image of Darkest parts of the Hero's being. However, the Shadow is not always a completely negative force. It can reveal redeeming and humanizing qualities that the Hero (or other caster of the Shadow) has rejected, feared, or otherwise avoided.
The Shadow can be symbolized through physical manifestation/incarnation or an internal struggle. The Shadow's defeat (or in some cases it's embrace) is pinnacle to the Hero being able to rise above his or her Self, so that he or she may find the strength/skill/ability to complete their Journey.
VIII. The Trickster - The Trickster is much like the Shapeshifter. It is the purpose of the Trickster to bring all accepted ideologies into question through disruption and apparent chaos. The Trickster breaks down the Ego of the Hero and (many times) all else he or she (or it) encounters. The Trickster is to affect lives; to cause the Hero to challenge, question, and break down his or her Understanding and Expectations.
IX. The Dragon - The Dragon is the Arch-Enemy of the Hero. The Dragon is that which must be slain in order for the Hero to complete his or her tasks. It is the barrier that attempts to prevent the birth of the important, significant, necessary change and progress that the Hero was meant to affect. The Dragon must be killed, or otherwise overcome, by the Hero.
I. Hero - The Hero affects change through invention or discovery. The Hero is called out to embark on a Sacred Journey which will forever change his or her world. It is through the eyes of the Hero that we experience the Journey.
II. Herald - The Herald announces the Call to Adventure and/or issues the Challenge to our Hero. The Herald can take virtually any possible form or incarnation. Once the call and/or challenged has been made by the Herald, the Hero must then choose to accept, reject, or pause in reluctance to consider the Call to Adventure and/or Challenge.
It is important to note that the Herald can appear at any point during the Hero's Journey.
III. Wise Man/Woman - The Wise Man/Woman (usually supernatural/otherworldly in nature) guides the Hero towards his or her Path. The Wise Man/Woman offers instruction and insight, and may even equip the Hero with a magical gift/tool/weapon that will aid in the Hero in his or her Journey.
The Wise Man/Woman is a mentor who can/will only journey so far with the Hero before he or she must take their appropriate absence. Their purpose is to guide the Hero toward his or her Call to Adventure.
IV. Threshold Guardian - The Threshold Guardian guards the Gate to the Unknown. This Guardian must be challenged and defeated through bargaining or death in order for the Hero to move forward in his Journey.
The Guardian's defeat and the crossing of the Threshold represent the Point of No Return. The Hero has accepted his Call and must now see it through.
V. Magical Helper - The Magical Helper or Helpers are allies that the Hero gains along his Journey into the Unknown/Abyss. These Helpers can offer insight into the local terrain, grant magical assistance/aid, offer magical gifts, and/or simply offer a Ministry of Presence.
VI. Shapeshifter - The purpose of the Shapeshifter is to bewilder, confuse, help, delay, progress, regress, and otherwise leave a Hero dumbfounded. The Shapeshifter contributes uncertainty, doubt, and tension to the Journey. Often the true intentions of the Shapeshifter are never known or understood until the last possible moment, if ever at all.
The Shapeshifter can be an ally, an enemy, or even part of the Hero himself.
VII. The Shadow - The Shadow is the reflection of the Hero's Darkest desires, rejected attributes, and repressed/untapped energies/resources. Often it is the mirrored image of Darkest parts of the Hero's being. However, the Shadow is not always a completely negative force. It can reveal redeeming and humanizing qualities that the Hero (or other caster of the Shadow) has rejected, feared, or otherwise avoided.
The Shadow can be symbolized through physical manifestation/incarnation or an internal struggle. The Shadow's defeat (or in some cases it's embrace) is pinnacle to the Hero being able to rise above his or her Self, so that he or she may find the strength/skill/ability to complete their Journey.
VIII. The Trickster - The Trickster is much like the Shapeshifter. It is the purpose of the Trickster to bring all accepted ideologies into question through disruption and apparent chaos. The Trickster breaks down the Ego of the Hero and (many times) all else he or she (or it) encounters. The Trickster is to affect lives; to cause the Hero to challenge, question, and break down his or her Understanding and Expectations.
IX. The Dragon - The Dragon is the Arch-Enemy of the Hero. The Dragon is that which must be slain in order for the Hero to complete his or her tasks. It is the barrier that attempts to prevent the birth of the important, significant, necessary change and progress that the Hero was meant to affect. The Dragon must be killed, or otherwise overcome, by the Hero.
Jim Crow in America Notes
Jim Crow in America
A depiction of Thomas D. Rice's "Jim Crow"
The term Jim Crow comes from the minstrel show song "Jump Jim Crow" written in 1828 and performed by Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice, a white immigrant to the U.S. and the first popularizer of blackface performance. in 1828 Rice appeared on stage as "Jim Crow" -- an exaggerated, highly stereotypical Black character.The song and blackface itself were an immediate hit. A caricature of a shabbily dressed rural black, "Jim Crow" became a standard character in minstrel shows. He was often paired with "Zip Coon," a ridiculous and flamboyantly dressed urban black who mimicked white culture in a foolish way. White audiences were receptive to the portrayals of Blacks as singing, dancing, grinning fools. Rice, and his imitators, by their stereotypical depictions of Blacks, helped to popularize the belief that Blacks were lazy, stupid, inherently less human, and unworthy of integration. During the years that Blacks were being victimized by lynch mobs, they were also victimized by the racist caricatures propagated through novels, sheet music, theatrical plays, and minstrel shows. Ironically, years later when Blacks replaced White minstrels, the Blacks also "blackened" their faces, thereby pretending to be Whites pretending to be Blacks. They, too, performed the “Coon Shows” which dehumanized Blacks and helped establish the desirability of racial segregation. By 1837, the term “Jim Crow” was being used to refer to racial segregation.
Minstrel Performers in blackface in the tradition of Jim Crow
Jim Dandy
Zip Coon
Jim Crow Laws
Voting: Blacks were denied the right to vote by
• Grandfather clauses (laws that restricted the right to vote to people whose ancestors had voted before the Civil War)
• Poll taxes (fees charged to poor Blacks)
• White primaries (only Democrats could vote, only Whites could be Democrats)
• Literacy tests ("Name all the Vice Presidents and Supreme Court Justices throughout America's history").
Examples of Jim Crow Laws by State
Alabama
• "Nurses. No person or corporation shall require any white female nurse to work in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which Negro men are placed.
• "Buses. All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races."
• "Restaurants. It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment."
Arkansas
• Intermarriage/Cohabitation: Various laws from 1884 to 1947 prohibited marriage or sexual relations between whites and blacks or “mulatoes,” providing for specific fines and even imprisonment up to three years.
• Public Accommodations: Various laws from 1891 to 1959 segregated rail travel, streetcars, buses, all public carriers, race tracks, gaming establishments, polling places, washrooms in mines, tuberculosis hospitals, public schools and teachers' colleges.
• Poll tax imposed in 1947.
Florida
• Intermarriage. All marriages between a white person and a Negro, or between a white person and a person of Negro descent to the fourth generation inclusive, are hereby forever prohibited.
• Cohabitation. Any Negro man and white woman, or any white man and Negro woman, who are not married to each other, who shall habitually live in and occupy in the nighttime the same room shall each be punished by imprisonment not exceeding twelve (12) months, or by fine not exceeding five hundred ($500.00) dollars.
• Education. The schools for white children and the schools for Negro children shall be conducted separately.
o 1865: Railroad [Statute] — Negroes or “mulattoes” who intruded into any railroad car reserved for white persons would be found guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, sentenced to stand in the pillory for one hour, or to be whipped, not exceeding 39 stripes, or both, at the discretion of the jury." Whites faced the same penalty for entering a car reserved for persons of color.
• 1895: Education [Statute] — Penal offense for any persons to conduct any school, any grade, either public or private where whites and blacks are instructed or boarded in the same building, or taught in the same class by the same teachers. Penalty: Between $150 and $500 fine, or imprisonment in the county jail between three and six months.
o 1927: Education [Statute] — Criminal offense for teachers of one race to instruct pupils of the other in public schools.
o 1927: Race classification [Statute] — Defined the words "Negro" or "colored person" to include persons who have one eighth or more Negro blood.
• 1967: Public accommodations [City Ordinance] — Sarasota passed a city ordinance stating that "Whenever members of two or more…races shall…be upon any public…bathing beach within the corporate limits of the City of Sarasota, it shall be the duty of the Chief of police or other officer…in charge of the public forces of the City...with the assistance of such police forces, to clear the area involved of all members of all races present."
• Amateur Baseball. It shall be unlawful for any amateur white baseball team to play baseball on any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of a playground devoted to the Negro race, and it shall be unlawful for any amateur colored baseball team to play baseball in any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of any playground devoted to the white race.
• Housing. Any person...who shall rent any part of any building to a Negro person or a Negro family when such building is already in whole or in part in occupancy by a white person or white family, or vice versa when the building is in occupancy by a Negro person or Negro family, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not less than twenty-five ($25.00) nor more than one hundred ($100.00) dollars or be imprisoned not less than 10, or more than 60 days, or both such fine and imprisonment in the discretion of the court.
Georgia
• Burial: The officer in charge shall not bury, or allow to be buried, any colored persons upon ground set apart or used for the burial of white persons.
Virginia
• Theaters. Every person...operating...any public hall, theatre, opera house, motion picture show or any place of public entertainment or public assemblage which is attended by both white and colored persons, shall separate the white race and the colored race and shall set apart and designate...certain seats therein to be occupied by white persons and a portion thereof , or certain seats therein, to be occupied by colored persons.
Wyoming
• Intermarriage. "All marriages of white persons with Negroes, “Mulattos,” Mongolians, or Malaya hereafter contracted in the State of Wyoming are and shall be illegal and void." The term 'Mongolian' included Aboriginal Americans as well as Asians.
The Etiquette of Jim Crow or How to Navigate the System
• A Black male could not offer his hand (to shake hands) with a White male because it implied being socially equal. Obviously, a Black male could not offer his hand or any other part of his body to a White woman, because he risked being accused of rape.
• Blacks and Whites were not supposed to eat together. If they did eat together, Whites were to be served first, and some sort of partition was to be placed between them.
• Under no circumstance was a Black male to offer to light the cigarette of a White female -- that gesture implied intimacy.
• Blacks were not allowed to show public affection toward one another in public, especially kissing, because it offended Whites.
• Jim Crow etiquette prescribed that Blacks were introduced to Whites, never Whites to Blacks. For example: "Mr. Peters (the White person), this is Charlie (the Black person), that I spoke to you about."
• Whites did not use courtesy titles of respect when referring to Blacks, for example, Mr., Mrs., Miss., Sir, or Ma'am. Instead, Blacks were called by their first names. Blacks had to use courtesy titles when referring to Whites, and were not allowed to call them by their first names.
• If a Black person rode in a car driven by a White person, the Black person sat in the back seat, or the back of a truck.
• White motorists had the right-of-way at all intersections.
Stetson Kennedy, the author of Jim Crow Guide, offered these simple rules that Blacks were supposed to observe in conversing with Whites:
1. Never assert or even intimate that a White person is lying.
2. Never impute dishonorable intentions to a White person.
3. Never suggest that a White person is from an inferior class.
4. Never lay claim to, or overly demonstrate, superior knowledge or intelligence.
5. Never curse a White person.
6. Never laugh derisively at a White person.
7. Never comment upon the appearance of a White female.
Blacks who violated Jim Crow norms, for example, drinking from the White water fountain or trying to vote, risked their homes, their jobs, even their lives. Whites could physically beat Blacks with impunity. Blacks had little legal recourse against these assaults because the Jim Crow criminal justice system was all-White: police, prosecutors, judges, juries, and prison officials. Violence was instrumental for Jim Crow. It was a method of social control. The most extreme forms of Jim Crow violence were lynchings.
Lynching 1930, Marion Indiana
A mob of 10,000 whites took sledgehammers to the county jailhouse doors to get at these two young blacks accused of raping a white girl; the girl’s uncle saved the life of a third by proclaiming the man’s innocence. Lynching photos were sometimes made into postcards.
Lynchings were public, often sadistic, murders carried out by mobs.
• Between 1882 & 1968 there were 4,730 known lynchings, including 3,440 Black men and women.
• Most of the victims of Lynch-Law were hanged or shot, but some were burned at the stake, castrated, beaten with clubs, or dismembered
• Lynching was used as an intimidation tool to keep Blacks "in their places.”
Under Jim Crow any and all sexual interactions between Black men and White women was illegal, illicit, socially repugnant, and within the Jim Crow definition of rape. The popular belief was that lynchings were necessary to protect White women from Black rapists.
In actuality, most Blacks were lynched for
• demanding civil rights
• violating Jim Crow etiquette or laws
• or in the aftermath of race riots.
A depiction of Thomas D. Rice's "Jim Crow"
The term Jim Crow comes from the minstrel show song "Jump Jim Crow" written in 1828 and performed by Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice, a white immigrant to the U.S. and the first popularizer of blackface performance. in 1828 Rice appeared on stage as "Jim Crow" -- an exaggerated, highly stereotypical Black character.The song and blackface itself were an immediate hit. A caricature of a shabbily dressed rural black, "Jim Crow" became a standard character in minstrel shows. He was often paired with "Zip Coon," a ridiculous and flamboyantly dressed urban black who mimicked white culture in a foolish way. White audiences were receptive to the portrayals of Blacks as singing, dancing, grinning fools. Rice, and his imitators, by their stereotypical depictions of Blacks, helped to popularize the belief that Blacks were lazy, stupid, inherently less human, and unworthy of integration. During the years that Blacks were being victimized by lynch mobs, they were also victimized by the racist caricatures propagated through novels, sheet music, theatrical plays, and minstrel shows. Ironically, years later when Blacks replaced White minstrels, the Blacks also "blackened" their faces, thereby pretending to be Whites pretending to be Blacks. They, too, performed the “Coon Shows” which dehumanized Blacks and helped establish the desirability of racial segregation. By 1837, the term “Jim Crow” was being used to refer to racial segregation.
Minstrel Performers in blackface in the tradition of Jim Crow
Jim Dandy
Zip Coon
Jim Crow Laws
Voting: Blacks were denied the right to vote by
• Grandfather clauses (laws that restricted the right to vote to people whose ancestors had voted before the Civil War)
• Poll taxes (fees charged to poor Blacks)
• White primaries (only Democrats could vote, only Whites could be Democrats)
• Literacy tests ("Name all the Vice Presidents and Supreme Court Justices throughout America's history").
Examples of Jim Crow Laws by State
Alabama
• "Nurses. No person or corporation shall require any white female nurse to work in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which Negro men are placed.
• "Buses. All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races."
• "Restaurants. It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment."
Arkansas
• Intermarriage/Cohabitation: Various laws from 1884 to 1947 prohibited marriage or sexual relations between whites and blacks or “mulatoes,” providing for specific fines and even imprisonment up to three years.
• Public Accommodations: Various laws from 1891 to 1959 segregated rail travel, streetcars, buses, all public carriers, race tracks, gaming establishments, polling places, washrooms in mines, tuberculosis hospitals, public schools and teachers' colleges.
• Poll tax imposed in 1947.
Florida
• Intermarriage. All marriages between a white person and a Negro, or between a white person and a person of Negro descent to the fourth generation inclusive, are hereby forever prohibited.
• Cohabitation. Any Negro man and white woman, or any white man and Negro woman, who are not married to each other, who shall habitually live in and occupy in the nighttime the same room shall each be punished by imprisonment not exceeding twelve (12) months, or by fine not exceeding five hundred ($500.00) dollars.
• Education. The schools for white children and the schools for Negro children shall be conducted separately.
o 1865: Railroad [Statute] — Negroes or “mulattoes” who intruded into any railroad car reserved for white persons would be found guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, sentenced to stand in the pillory for one hour, or to be whipped, not exceeding 39 stripes, or both, at the discretion of the jury." Whites faced the same penalty for entering a car reserved for persons of color.
• 1895: Education [Statute] — Penal offense for any persons to conduct any school, any grade, either public or private where whites and blacks are instructed or boarded in the same building, or taught in the same class by the same teachers. Penalty: Between $150 and $500 fine, or imprisonment in the county jail between three and six months.
o 1927: Education [Statute] — Criminal offense for teachers of one race to instruct pupils of the other in public schools.
o 1927: Race classification [Statute] — Defined the words "Negro" or "colored person" to include persons who have one eighth or more Negro blood.
• 1967: Public accommodations [City Ordinance] — Sarasota passed a city ordinance stating that "Whenever members of two or more…races shall…be upon any public…bathing beach within the corporate limits of the City of Sarasota, it shall be the duty of the Chief of police or other officer…in charge of the public forces of the City...with the assistance of such police forces, to clear the area involved of all members of all races present."
• Amateur Baseball. It shall be unlawful for any amateur white baseball team to play baseball on any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of a playground devoted to the Negro race, and it shall be unlawful for any amateur colored baseball team to play baseball in any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of any playground devoted to the white race.
• Housing. Any person...who shall rent any part of any building to a Negro person or a Negro family when such building is already in whole or in part in occupancy by a white person or white family, or vice versa when the building is in occupancy by a Negro person or Negro family, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not less than twenty-five ($25.00) nor more than one hundred ($100.00) dollars or be imprisoned not less than 10, or more than 60 days, or both such fine and imprisonment in the discretion of the court.
Georgia
• Burial: The officer in charge shall not bury, or allow to be buried, any colored persons upon ground set apart or used for the burial of white persons.
Virginia
• Theaters. Every person...operating...any public hall, theatre, opera house, motion picture show or any place of public entertainment or public assemblage which is attended by both white and colored persons, shall separate the white race and the colored race and shall set apart and designate...certain seats therein to be occupied by white persons and a portion thereof , or certain seats therein, to be occupied by colored persons.
Wyoming
• Intermarriage. "All marriages of white persons with Negroes, “Mulattos,” Mongolians, or Malaya hereafter contracted in the State of Wyoming are and shall be illegal and void." The term 'Mongolian' included Aboriginal Americans as well as Asians.
The Etiquette of Jim Crow or How to Navigate the System
• A Black male could not offer his hand (to shake hands) with a White male because it implied being socially equal. Obviously, a Black male could not offer his hand or any other part of his body to a White woman, because he risked being accused of rape.
• Blacks and Whites were not supposed to eat together. If they did eat together, Whites were to be served first, and some sort of partition was to be placed between them.
• Under no circumstance was a Black male to offer to light the cigarette of a White female -- that gesture implied intimacy.
• Blacks were not allowed to show public affection toward one another in public, especially kissing, because it offended Whites.
• Jim Crow etiquette prescribed that Blacks were introduced to Whites, never Whites to Blacks. For example: "Mr. Peters (the White person), this is Charlie (the Black person), that I spoke to you about."
• Whites did not use courtesy titles of respect when referring to Blacks, for example, Mr., Mrs., Miss., Sir, or Ma'am. Instead, Blacks were called by their first names. Blacks had to use courtesy titles when referring to Whites, and were not allowed to call them by their first names.
• If a Black person rode in a car driven by a White person, the Black person sat in the back seat, or the back of a truck.
• White motorists had the right-of-way at all intersections.
Stetson Kennedy, the author of Jim Crow Guide, offered these simple rules that Blacks were supposed to observe in conversing with Whites:
1. Never assert or even intimate that a White person is lying.
2. Never impute dishonorable intentions to a White person.
3. Never suggest that a White person is from an inferior class.
4. Never lay claim to, or overly demonstrate, superior knowledge or intelligence.
5. Never curse a White person.
6. Never laugh derisively at a White person.
7. Never comment upon the appearance of a White female.
Blacks who violated Jim Crow norms, for example, drinking from the White water fountain or trying to vote, risked their homes, their jobs, even their lives. Whites could physically beat Blacks with impunity. Blacks had little legal recourse against these assaults because the Jim Crow criminal justice system was all-White: police, prosecutors, judges, juries, and prison officials. Violence was instrumental for Jim Crow. It was a method of social control. The most extreme forms of Jim Crow violence were lynchings.
Lynching 1930, Marion Indiana
A mob of 10,000 whites took sledgehammers to the county jailhouse doors to get at these two young blacks accused of raping a white girl; the girl’s uncle saved the life of a third by proclaiming the man’s innocence. Lynching photos were sometimes made into postcards.
Lynchings were public, often sadistic, murders carried out by mobs.
• Between 1882 & 1968 there were 4,730 known lynchings, including 3,440 Black men and women.
• Most of the victims of Lynch-Law were hanged or shot, but some were burned at the stake, castrated, beaten with clubs, or dismembered
• Lynching was used as an intimidation tool to keep Blacks "in their places.”
Under Jim Crow any and all sexual interactions between Black men and White women was illegal, illicit, socially repugnant, and within the Jim Crow definition of rape. The popular belief was that lynchings were necessary to protect White women from Black rapists.
In actuality, most Blacks were lynched for
• demanding civil rights
• violating Jim Crow etiquette or laws
• or in the aftermath of race riots.
Ralph Ellison Biography Notes
Ralph Ellison Biography
Novelist and essayist, 1914—1994
Ralph Waldo Ellison, born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma was the son of Lewis and Ida Ellison who had each grown up in the South to parents who had been slaves. The couple moved out west to Oklahoma hoping the lives of their children would be fueled with a sense of possibility in this state that was reputed for its freedom. Ellison, who first thought he might be a professional musician, played several instruments including the trumpet, which he played in his school band beginning at age eight. During his teenage years, Ellison and his friends imagined being the eclectic combination of frontiersmen and Renaissance Men. The ideal they created gave them the courage to expect anything out of life. They believed that they had the ability and power to do whatever they wanted in life as well as or better than men of any race. At Tuskegee, Ellison excelled in his music program as well as taking a particular liking to his sociology and sculpture classes and the outside classroom which Alabama provided. Though not pleased with the desire of the state's people, black and white, to categorize him as he had never experienced at home, he did appreciate the chance to raise his own consciousness concerning the rest of the country he lived in. Literature would also influence his stay at Tuskegee as he again delved into the expansive libraries at his disposal.
He began reading writers like Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and James Joyce. Especially inspired by Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land,” Ellison became interested in using the forms of modern literature to describe the daily life of American blacks.
When scholarship money ran out in his third year of college, Ellison moved to New York City, and began living and working in the Harlem YMCA., still hoping to return to Tuskeegee, he never did. Meeting the poet Langston Hughes, and the French writer André Malraux, had a great influence on him, and Ellison also became friendly with another young, struggling writer named Richard Wright. Wright later helped Ellison get a job with the Federal Writer’s Project, where he spent time assembling a wealth of material on black folklore, games, and children’s rhymes.
During the last three years of World War II Ellison served as a cook in the Merchant Marine. In his spare time aboard ship, he wrote short stories and the beginnings of a novel set in a prisoner of war camp. In 1946, he married Fanny McConnell. His novel changed form when, one day, he typed out the words, “I am an invisible man.” After seven years of work, his epic novel Invisible Man, the story of an anonymous black youth growing up in racist America, was published in 1952 to universal acclaim.
Ellison wrote dozens of essays describing the African-American experience, but his second novel was still unfinished when he died 42 years later. On the basis of his first novel, the writer won many honors including the National Book Award, election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1965 a survey of 200 prominent literary figures judged Invisible Man “the most distinguished single work” published in America in the previous 20 years. Ellison spent a great deal of time teaching in various colleges. In 1970, he became the Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities at New York University. Ellison continued until the day he died spreading and cultivating his vision of America and art: the conscious protagonist and the use of blackness to break categories instead of sustaining them.
Novelist and essayist, 1914—1994
Ralph Waldo Ellison, born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma was the son of Lewis and Ida Ellison who had each grown up in the South to parents who had been slaves. The couple moved out west to Oklahoma hoping the lives of their children would be fueled with a sense of possibility in this state that was reputed for its freedom. Ellison, who first thought he might be a professional musician, played several instruments including the trumpet, which he played in his school band beginning at age eight. During his teenage years, Ellison and his friends imagined being the eclectic combination of frontiersmen and Renaissance Men. The ideal they created gave them the courage to expect anything out of life. They believed that they had the ability and power to do whatever they wanted in life as well as or better than men of any race. At Tuskegee, Ellison excelled in his music program as well as taking a particular liking to his sociology and sculpture classes and the outside classroom which Alabama provided. Though not pleased with the desire of the state's people, black and white, to categorize him as he had never experienced at home, he did appreciate the chance to raise his own consciousness concerning the rest of the country he lived in. Literature would also influence his stay at Tuskegee as he again delved into the expansive libraries at his disposal.
He began reading writers like Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and James Joyce. Especially inspired by Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land,” Ellison became interested in using the forms of modern literature to describe the daily life of American blacks.
When scholarship money ran out in his third year of college, Ellison moved to New York City, and began living and working in the Harlem YMCA., still hoping to return to Tuskeegee, he never did. Meeting the poet Langston Hughes, and the French writer André Malraux, had a great influence on him, and Ellison also became friendly with another young, struggling writer named Richard Wright. Wright later helped Ellison get a job with the Federal Writer’s Project, where he spent time assembling a wealth of material on black folklore, games, and children’s rhymes.
During the last three years of World War II Ellison served as a cook in the Merchant Marine. In his spare time aboard ship, he wrote short stories and the beginnings of a novel set in a prisoner of war camp. In 1946, he married Fanny McConnell. His novel changed form when, one day, he typed out the words, “I am an invisible man.” After seven years of work, his epic novel Invisible Man, the story of an anonymous black youth growing up in racist America, was published in 1952 to universal acclaim.
Ellison wrote dozens of essays describing the African-American experience, but his second novel was still unfinished when he died 42 years later. On the basis of his first novel, the writer won many honors including the National Book Award, election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1965 a survey of 200 prominent literary figures judged Invisible Man “the most distinguished single work” published in America in the previous 20 years. Ellison spent a great deal of time teaching in various colleges. In 1970, he became the Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities at New York University. Ellison continued until the day he died spreading and cultivating his vision of America and art: the conscious protagonist and the use of blackness to break categories instead of sustaining them.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Crime and Punishment Epilogue
Crime and Punishment Epilogue
Thematically, the epilogue is superfluous to the novel; it only tidies up loose ends.
Factors Contributing to Raskolnikov’s Light Sentence of Only Eight Years in Siberia
• Raskolnikov made a voluntary confession.
• There was testimony that he was on the verge of a mental breakdown.
• He never counted the money.
• He did not profit from the crime.
• There was testimony of his many charitable acts and good character.
Resolution
• Pulcheria dies in ignorance of the crime.
• Dounia and Razumihin marry and open a translation publication company.
• Svidrigalov’s money enables Sonia to follow Raskolnikov to Siberia.
• In prison through his suffering, Raskolnikov is truly redeemed.
• Raskolnikov and Sonia plan a future together.
Thematically, the epilogue is superfluous to the novel; it only tidies up loose ends.
Factors Contributing to Raskolnikov’s Light Sentence of Only Eight Years in Siberia
• Raskolnikov made a voluntary confession.
• There was testimony that he was on the verge of a mental breakdown.
• He never counted the money.
• He did not profit from the crime.
• There was testimony of his many charitable acts and good character.
Resolution
• Pulcheria dies in ignorance of the crime.
• Dounia and Razumihin marry and open a translation publication company.
• Svidrigalov’s money enables Sonia to follow Raskolnikov to Siberia.
• In prison through his suffering, Raskolnikov is truly redeemed.
• Raskolnikov and Sonia plan a future together.
Crime and Punishment Part VI
Crime and Punishment Part VI
Porfiry knows that Raskolnikov is the murderer. He comes to this conclusion based upon the following points:
• The pledges (all who were listed in Alyona’s pledge book were suspected). This list includes Raskolnikov.
• Porfiry had previously read a publication of Raskolnikov’s theory. His ideas mark him as a suspect.
• Raskolnikov’s illness makes him suspect because according to his theory, illness always accompanies crime.
• A witness saw him when he returned to the scene of the crime.
Even though Nikolay confessed, he knows that he belongs to a group that believes that suffering is a means of self purification and therefore he does not believe the confession. Porfiry gives Raskolnikov several days to confess. He needs to understand that his theory is wrong so that from this confession he can go on, face life, and become one of the important minds of Russia. Arresting him now would ruin Raskolnikov’s intellectual redemption through self-realization. If he recognizes his own error, and then suffers for his crime, then he can achieve intellectual greatness in his own right. As Porfiry states thematically, “For suffering, Rodion Romanovitch, is a great thing.”
Points to Remember
• Raskolnikov confession to Sonia only reconnects him to others. His redemption is incomplete because he has not been intellectually redeemed through rejection of his theory. Note: “he has taken up his cross” but he refuses to “kiss the ground that he has defiled” for fear of ridicule and damage to his pride.
• Svidrigalov’s suicide is part of the author’s theme: There can be no superman who transgresses the law. Sooner or later every person needs human warmth and companionship. He could have raped Dounia had self-gratification been enough, but he wanted her to want him. He cannot will her to love him. He cannot go back. He does not believe that there is a God who will punish him and therefore the only thing left to will is his own death.
• Raskolnikov’s confession to Porfiry serves to redeem his intellectual, calculating side. This marks the second climax and the thematic end of the story. However, the story continues in the epilog.
Porfiry knows that Raskolnikov is the murderer. He comes to this conclusion based upon the following points:
• The pledges (all who were listed in Alyona’s pledge book were suspected). This list includes Raskolnikov.
• Porfiry had previously read a publication of Raskolnikov’s theory. His ideas mark him as a suspect.
• Raskolnikov’s illness makes him suspect because according to his theory, illness always accompanies crime.
• A witness saw him when he returned to the scene of the crime.
Even though Nikolay confessed, he knows that he belongs to a group that believes that suffering is a means of self purification and therefore he does not believe the confession. Porfiry gives Raskolnikov several days to confess. He needs to understand that his theory is wrong so that from this confession he can go on, face life, and become one of the important minds of Russia. Arresting him now would ruin Raskolnikov’s intellectual redemption through self-realization. If he recognizes his own error, and then suffers for his crime, then he can achieve intellectual greatness in his own right. As Porfiry states thematically, “For suffering, Rodion Romanovitch, is a great thing.”
Points to Remember
• Raskolnikov confession to Sonia only reconnects him to others. His redemption is incomplete because he has not been intellectually redeemed through rejection of his theory. Note: “he has taken up his cross” but he refuses to “kiss the ground that he has defiled” for fear of ridicule and damage to his pride.
• Svidrigalov’s suicide is part of the author’s theme: There can be no superman who transgresses the law. Sooner or later every person needs human warmth and companionship. He could have raped Dounia had self-gratification been enough, but he wanted her to want him. He cannot will her to love him. He cannot go back. He does not believe that there is a God who will punish him and therefore the only thing left to will is his own death.
• Raskolnikov’s confession to Porfiry serves to redeem his intellectual, calculating side. This marks the second climax and the thematic end of the story. However, the story continues in the epilog.
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