The Importance of Teaching African American Literature

Racial equality has made great strides since the works we have read were written. It has been over one hundred and sixty years since the American civil war, fifty or so years since the civil rights movement, and African Americans find near equality in much of the country, we even have a half black president. Even with all of these strides, there is more to do, and as a society we can and shall advance even further when it comes to prejudices, and teaching African American literature in schools is an important way to continue this trend of moving towards social equality. It is important to discuss the things we have so far in class, such as the archetype of the "happy slave", a "loving" slave and master relationship, and understanding segregation within classes, like the Blue Vein Society. Reading literature allows us to understand the thoughts and philosophy of another human being, so by reading such literature, we are able to imagine ourselves in such horrible circumstances and how offensive a "happy" slave or nostalgic south is to an entire race of people. Mark Twain was not black, but we can learn from writings like "A True Story", which makes the point that the slaves and their families felt the way white people do. They loved each other and their children just as much as the white man, and for many white people at the time this was a crazy thing to think. It is by reading African American literature and literature such as Twain's "A True Story" that people can imagine themselves in others shoes. It is important to continue to teach these subjects in school, and remember that our history is in fact clouded in very horrible acts. It is important to realize this and learn from it, we can do nothing about the past but control the future.

Chesnutt

I don't know about the rest of you, but I had a very difficult time reading the two Chesnutt pieces for today's class. The dialogue of the black characters was hard to read for comprehension. I found myself focusing on what words they were speaking instead of what they were actually saying. When I have read this before, like in Huck Finn for example, the dialogue is around text with proper grammar. In these stories, the black character was telling a story, so it was nothing but dialogue. No other characters talking for the most part, and no narrator to frame the story while it was being told. Huck Finn has a narrator that I can understand that is telling the actually story. The actual stories being told in Chestnutt were ones I had to pick out. Eventually I got pretty much what the story was, but the effect of a good story is lost when I have to struggle to know the story. Not only did I find the dialogue hard to read, but it was offensive, though I understand that these were written in very different times. I do get offended at times when reading dialogue like this from minority characters, but I have to imagine that the author is only trying to capture what that person sounded like and blacks at the time were uneducated so it may not be far from the truth. In the end I didn't enjoy these pieces because it was such a struggle to simply read them.

Freewoman

One of my favorite things to do with stories is to look at the characters and Freeman's characters have all been interesting. When looking at Freeman's woman, I can see three levels of woman pretty easily.  In A New England Nun, Louissa is rather timid and actually waits 14 years for Joe to return. She seemed pretty accustomed to being on her own and quit on edge when Joe was in her home. She couldn't believe she was going to live with him. Even though she felt this way, she was still planning on marrying him. Luckily for each of them, Louissa overheard Joe speaking to Lily and realized neither of them wanted to get married so she was able to easily call off the wedding.
In The Revolt of Mother , Sarah openly tells her husband she wants a new house and that he promised her a new house on the spot he is building a new barn. For awhile she goes along with it, only complaining to her husband, but what more could she do? Once she has the chance she acts and pretty much gets what she wants, able to adapt the barn into adequate living space. It took some time for Sarah to act instead of speak, but when she did it made a much larger statement than anything she could say.
In Old Woman Magoun, the title character is a "strong" old woman in a sense. She has complete control over Lily's life, treating her like a child though she was becoming a young woman, and when she spoke to others in the town, it was with that "old lady" tone, at least that's how I read it, very forceful and unafraid to talk over men, even with what time period it was in.
I see Louissa as the character that fits the social norm the most, timid, waiting for the man to return. Sarah fell into her role, though she was outspoken about what she wanted, and eventually took action. Old Woman Magoun, who fit the role the least,  had life behind her in support and spoke with authority, and exhibited that authority over Lily. Interestingly, this order goes from youngest (Louissa) to oldest (Old Woman Magoun), and I would agree that many woman become more outspoken with age, even today. As they get older and more accustomed to their own role, not the role society deems for them, they become more outspoken and personally free.