Genre Blog Post #3: Sexy

      For this blog post, I will be analyzing the short story Sexy by Jhumpa Lahiri. My theme for this will be love. "Hi" she whispered, unsure of what else to say. "You're sexy." he whispered back." (Lahiri, 1655)
      Even though I'm only 20 years old, I feel like I've had a long enough experience with love to know when it's real or not. My perception of romance started when I was 4 years old and my parents religiously watched The Bachelor every week. I don't remember this, but my parents have told me that once I asked them if I needed to go on TV to get married. Needless to say, they stopped watching the show after that. Since then I've had my fair share of puppy love. In 7th grade I actually broke up with my "boyfriend" at the time because he gave me a necklace for my birthday and I thought that was too clingy, so I dumped him. Apparently I didn't have much remorse as a 13-year-old. Now at 20, I've been in a relationship with my boyfriend for 2 1/2 years. I can proudly say that he is my best friend also. And even though we're young, where we are at in our lives right now, we both plan on spending the rest of it together. Maybe the future holds a different reality, but no matter what happens between us, I know that I'll always love him.
      Love is a complicated thing though, especially in this day and age. With dating online, divorce rates up, it's hard to find that special someone to spend the rest of your life with. In Miranda's case, I personally don't think that Dev loves her. "Miranda and Dev didn't argue." (Lahiri, 1654) How can you love someone if you haven't argued with them before? In my opinion, arguing and someone's anger is a big role in relationships, it's going to happen no matter what. So knowing how your partner acts when heated in the moment is important to be aware of. You could have a happy-go-lucky person (like Dev) but when they get angry they could turn into the Hulk. In my opinion, you should know all sides of your partner before you decide that you love them. "Do you remember what you said?' There was a pause. 'Let's go back to your place?' He laughed quietly." (Lahiri, 1664). Here, when Miranda asks Dev if he remembers what he said in the Mapparium, once again, all he can think about is having sex with her. And on the third Sunday of not seeing each other, Dev doesn't even call her. I think all these things put together prove that Dev never really loved Miranda, he only really saw her as a sex object. He may have liked her, got a long with her well, but he never saw a future with her like Laxmi's cousin's husband did. And I don't think that Miranda loved Dev either, otherwise I think she probably would have tried harder to be with him. She knew what they were doing wasn't right though, and felt guilty for it.
     

Literary Context Presentation: Junot Diaz

       For my Literary Context Presentation, I chose to research the author Junot Diaz. Diaz has written several works, his two most famous ones being Drown and The Brief Wondrous Life of  Oscar Wao. For class, we read the first short story in his collection of short stories in Drown, which is also titled Drown. 
     Through my research I found it was interesting that Diaz was born in the Dominican Republic, and moved to New Jersey when he was six years old. Diaz's dual heritage has influenced him a lot in his writings. This is certainly shown through his short story Drown. The main character in that story is from some kind of Spanish heritage, so I'm sure many of the things in this short story that allude to the Spanish culture could possibly be from Diaz's own childhood. 
     Another thing I found interesting about Diaz's personal life is that he is currently in a domestic partnership with another author of the paranormal romance genre, named Marjorie Liu. Although a domesticpartnership only means that the two live together and are not legally married, it does make me wonder if maybe the homosexuality experience in Drown could possibly be of Diaz's own experience. It could be possible that Diaz could have had a similar experience to that of the narrator's and maybe that's why he's chosen to just remain in a domestic partnership. Of course, we'll most likely never really know that. 

    In Drown our main character has a complicated relationship with his mother. "Saturdays she asks me to take her to the mall. As a son I feel I owe her that much, even though none of us has a car and we have to walk two miles through redneck territory to catch the M15." (Diaz, 1668). In this scene of the short story, we see our narrator feeling obligated to take his mother to the mall. Of course, she probably couldn't go out by herself because it wouldn't be safe, and it is a two mile walk. The narrator does say that he'd rather be out selling drugs to the local kids, because on a Saturday he could make a lot of money. But seeing his mother get dressed up for the occasion, it's easy to understand why our narrator feels like he has to take her. "She doesn't go out much, so when she does it's a big deal. She dresses up, even puts on makeup." (Diaz, 1668). I know that in the Spanish culture, it's a big deal to be respectful of your parents, and often times children don't typically leave home until they're married themselves. In this particular situation, our narrator's father isn't around, so he's left to be the 'man of the house' so to speak. He even gives his mother $50 to buy things, andreminisces how his father used to give her $100. In Diaz's actual life, he spent several years living with just his mother, grandparents, and his siblings. While in Drown,  our narrator doesn't seem to have any siblings, it's probably certain that Diaz felt a strong connection with his mother and felt like he needed to take care of her after they moved out of the Dominican Republic. 

Works Cited: 

“Junot Diaz”. The Northern Anthology of American Literature, Volume 2.

“Guns and Roses: Junot Diaz”. Publishers Weekly. 30 July, 2012.

“Beyond Multiculturalism: Ethnic Studies, Transnationalism, and Junot Díaz's Oscar Wao”. Mermann-Jozwiak, Elisabeth Maria. 2012.

Works Cited

Bibler, Kathryn. “The Pay Gap is Even Worse for Black Women, and That’s Everyone’s Problem.” The American Association of University Women. 21 July, 2015.

Hurtson, Zora. “How it Feels to Be Colored Me.” The Northern Anthology American Literature. 2012

King, Wilma. “Prematurely Knowing of Evil Things: The Sexual Abuse of African American Girls and Young Women in Slavery and Freedom”. The Journal of African American History. Published by The Association for the Study of African American Life and History. 2004.  

“Black Women and the Wage Gap.” The National Partnership for Women and Families. March 2017. 

Literary Analysis

My theme, women in slavery, is depicted in Uncle Tom’s Cabin by the character Emmeline, who was bought mostly for the purpose of being exploited by her new owner, “When Legree scolded and stormed, Emmeline was terrified; but when he laid his hand on her, and spoke as he now did, she felt as if she had rather he would strike her. The expression of his eyes made her soul sick, and her flesh creep.” (Stowe, 313). I can’t imagine the feeling of being assaulted like that, and having absolutely no power to do anything about it. But this was a reality for so many girls and women in slavery. In Beloved, the theme of women in slavery is distinctively shown through Sethe, who was raped and beaten by her slave owners, and Baby Suggs who was only used to breed, never getting the chance to lover her children, except Halle, because they were all taken away from her. I think, especially in Beloved, that it was important to Morrison to get the point across that women in slavery had to endure many difficult hardships that slave men weren’t faced with. The class reading that I believe connects most with Beloved is “How it Feels to be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston. Her line, “I belong to no race nor time. I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads.” (Hurston, 943) reminded me of Sethe. When Sethe was explaining what happened to her second youngest child to Paul D, she seemed confident in her decision, even 18 years later. Just how in “How it Feels to be Colored Me” Hurston is confident too in her ethnicity, and her femininity. Women in slavery have had to endure so many horrific events, but just like any other horrific event, great art comes out of it. 

Reader Response

Goodreads.com: Beloved seemed to be a hit or a miss on Goodreads.com. People either gave it a five star rating, or a one star rating. For the most part though, people agreed that Morrison had a talented way of making her novel “poetic” and people liked how she connected the two dark stories of murder, and slaves running away. One reader, Glenn Sumi, who rated the novel five stars in February of 2015 said, “Other things that will haunt and disturb me: the idea of black slaves being compared to animals; the sequence in which Paul D discovers just how much he’s worth in dollars and cents, compared to Sethe, who is basically a breeding machine to create more slaves…. the description of Sethe’s back, so severely scarred from whippings it resembles a multi-branched tree, or Paul D talking about slaves having their mouths pried open with horses’ bits”. Many other commenters agreed with him that Morrison did a great job of leaving haunting images in their minds, which lead to important questions, that might not be able to be answered.

BarnesandNoble.com: Readers on BarnesandNoble.com found Beloved to be very powerful, one reader saying it was “The most moving, soulful story of the slavery experience I have ever read.” Another reader simply labeled it “Provoking”, giving it three stars and saying that it was a good book, but the difficulty of the novel threw her off. Overall though, many readers found it to be “Hauntingly beautiful” and have said it will leave a lasting impression on them as well.

Amazon.com: Amazon-shopper T. Decker wrote on July 4, 2016 that Beloved is a “Classic of American Literature” and Toni Morrison thoroughly deserved her Nobel Peace Prize for the novel. Another reader, James S. Bennett said he started to read the book because of the recent killings of unarmed black men by police officers and wanted to “understand how black people in this country experience life, and starting with the shameful history of slavery seemed like a good place to start”. Bennett agreed that Beloved lives up to all the excitement it gets, and is hard to put down. Other Amazon customers overall agree with Bennett in saying that this novel is more relevant now, than ever.

I would have to agree with the majority of the online book reviewers. Especially Glenn Sumi from Goodreads.com who said the images from Beloved would be in his mind forever. I have several different books already whose stories and characters I am reminded of in simple, everyday life activities, and Beloved is sure to be added to this list. The thing I like most about Beloved is that Morrison focused it more on women in slavery, which to me is an interesting topic, which I don’t think is talked about enough. And I also whole-heartedly agree that Morrison’s poetic style of writing is what tied the whole thing together. 

Contemporary Connections

For my first article, I chose to read an analyze the article “Black Women and the Wage Gap” written by The National Partnership for Women and Families in March of 2017. This article highlights not only the gender wage gap that exists in our society today, but how much further that wage gap goes in comparison of white women to black women. According to The National Partnership for Women and Families, African American women make 64% of what white men make, while white women make 78% of what white men make. This social issue can definitely be applied to Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Beloved. In both novels, there are strong female characters, who prove to be hard workers and good mothers. Also in both novels, the women run away from their slave owner’s and have to start a new life for themselves. Being a woman in the 19^th century was hard enough, but being a black, runaway slave woman was worse. Not only were they limited to the type of work they could do, but they were surely judged on their color, and probably faced a lot of discrimination because of it. Discrimination that could easily include not being paid as much as their male co-workers.

For the second article, I chose, “The Pay Gap is Even Worse for Black Women, and that’s Everyone’s Problem” by Kathryn Bibler on July 21, 2015. Bibler puts the wage gap into a good perspective by giving the scenario of “Would you like to work eight extra months for free just to earn the same paycheck as your male co-workers? We didn’t think so. Unfortunately, if you’re a black woman in the United States, that’s a likely reality.”

With all of the social issues going on today, like the Black Lives Matter Movement, the wage gap, and racism that is still present, novels like Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Beloved are more relevant now than ever. It’s easy to see that history repeats itself, and while we have somewhat grown from America’s days of slavery, racism is still very much present in our society. Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Beloved give people a new perspective of what it’s like to be African American, and shows how the effects of slavery are still present in our society today. 

Critical Commentary

The scholarly article I chose to read and analyze was “Prematurely Knowing of Evil Things: The Sexual Abuse of African American Girls and Young Women in Slavery and Freedom” from the book, The Journal of African American History Volume 99. Wilma King, the author of this essay, states that she this essay challenges preconceived notions about rape in the slave community, and “documents incidences of sexual abuse and exploitation, primarily against African American girls and teenagers, from the era of slavery to the late 20^th century to highlight diverse responses to aggression by the survivors of rape, their families, and the local communities.” (King, 173). Throughout the article, King gives many different examples of cases in the United State’s Judicial system. Some cases sides with the victim, and sometimes they didn’t. King went in depth to these cases and explained how other laws of the time, the age of the girl, the status (colored or white) of the girl, and the status (colored or white) of the perpetrator would define the final outcome of the case.

King’s article was very eye-opening, and raised important questions about women in slavery, and how they were sexually abused. King also raised very important questions about how the relationship of the slave owner and his wife, the slave and his wife, and slaves to other slaves, changed because of the slave owner’s decisions. One thing that King pointed out, which I think is very important, is that not only women and girls were the victims of sexual abuse in slavery. Many times, men were forced to force themselves upon a woman, for the soul purpose of breeding. “Maverick persisted in his demands until the man forced himself on her…” (King, 180). It was interesting to read about the different cases and how the smallest factor could completely change the outcome of the case. It was also horrifying to read what some of these women had to go through. As King mentioned though, these are only some of the stories that are on record. We’ll never know just how many women and girls were sexually exploited, and helpless to it, because the law didn’t even see them as human.