Serenity's African American Lit Blog

Janie’s relationships have each taught her really important lessons, but unfortunately mostly through mostly negative experiences.  Even though we don’t really see most of her relationship with Logan (there isn’t really much to show), it is clear that Janie doesn’t feel fully comfortable with him, and also feels like she isn’t getting the respect she deserves. Despite her gut feeling to not marry him, Janie submitted to the pressure she felt from her grandmother and married Logan. She quickly learned that was a bad idea, and freed herself by walking away and marrying another man. I thought it was interesting how she wasn’t sure Joe would be waiting for her and would have a very uncertain future if he weren’t waiting, yet she knew that whatever happened when she left would be better than staying with Logan. Through this relationship she realized that she was the only person who could dictate who she loved and married. While marrying Joe was her choice, in a way their marriage was so rus

  I thought the Sambo doll and the coin bank played really important roles in the book and deeply affected the narrator.       When the narrator first finds the coin bank, it’s a little confusing because I wasn’t sure how he could stay in Mary’s house for so long without noticing it in his room. However, as the coin bank is a depiction of an enslaved man trying to get on a white man’s good side, I think it’s fitting that he finds the coin bank right before he starts working for the Brotherhood. Not that the narrator is trying to get on all the white men’s good sides, but that he’s going to work for them knowing absolutely nothing about their moral beliefs or goals. He’s enticed by the higher pay level, eventually at the cost of his own sanity. I also think that the coin bank represents how stereotypes follow you wherever you go, and no matter how hard you try to not fit into them, just by having black skin people will associate you with them. He tries his hardest to get rid of the disg

  Throughout the course of the novel, there have been several characters that impact the narrator’s perspective and in some cases, course of action. Each of them acts as a mentorish figure in a very different way. The first example we get to know is Dr. Bledsoe who the narrator idolizes for his success.      The narrator looks up to his power and high reputation. However, the narrator does not really understand Bledsoe’s dog-eat-dog work mentality until he stabs the narrator in the back by kicking him out of the school without telling him. Up until that point, he thought that Bledsoe’s intentions were more focused on helping black people succeed rather than bringing only himself up, even at the expense of other black people. When the narrator moves all the way to New York and realizes what Bledsoe has done, he becomes deeply angry and carries that anger and loss of innocence with him for the rest of the book.       The veteran is someone that could be considered one of these mentor fig

     I thought the whole chapter in Liberty Paints was really interesting and a very well crafted metaphor. The fact that Brockway created the “If it’s Optic White, It’s the Right White” slogan for the company and says “Our white is so white you can paint a chunka coal and you’d have to crack it open with a sledge hammer to prove it wasn’t white clear through” while being a black person creates a really powerful dynamic. Brockway, who believes wholeheartedly in this paint company that has made its name by covering up blackness with white paint, has been moved to the basement of the company away from anybody else. He says it’s because nobody can watch the paint tanks like him, but I have to question if the “Old Man” really believes that or just tells him that to keep him content. It was also interesting reading his thoughts on the union and how the union workers were making life miserable for everyone else, because in reality it’s not the union workers' fault, it’s the company’s fau

       I thought the depictions of the Daltons and the communist party were very interesting. Knowing that Wright himself was a communist changes how I view the depiction of communism. Through Wright’s portrayal of Jan and Mary, he made quite the commentary on wealthy white communists. Jan and Mary seemed so oblivious and at times ignorant when talking to Bigger. They compared the treatment of African Americans to the treatment of communists, as if communists weren’t choosing that life. While “communism” was quite the buzz word at the time (I would say it still is) and there were real repercussions for being a part of the communist party, it was not anything like racism. They also claimed to be interested in helping African Americans through communism, but that is impossible when you have such little understanding of their problems. I think Wright must have been saying that while communism was the solution, the people leading the charge were exclusive and ignorant to the real issues in