Rivised Blog Two

Hello, my name is Annalice Weatherly, and I am a student at LaGuardia Community college.  In my ENG260 novel class, I decided for my second blog, it will be a Creative writing reflection based on Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall novel.  In this blog, I explore a very specific part of the book that caught my interest.

 Ruth Hall was a naive little girl who thought she just needed to improve her physical appearances to be loved by her family, but as she grew from adolescent to a mature woman, she realized there is a lot more to this world than what she originally thought. She suffered through her mother-in-law’s cruel behaviors, her parent’s abandonment, the loss of her first child, and her husband. She went hungry to make sure her kids ate. She used her brother’s negatives attitudes toward her as her motivation and became a bestselling author. Her braveness along with her humility touched the heart of readers.

            One of the characters that truly intrigue me in Ruth Hall is Ruth’s mother-in-law Mrs. Hall.  Mrs. Hall is a very peculiar woman.  She preaches things she does not practice and she makes her own rules.  She claims she is a Christian, but her actions prove otherwise.  “Young people , now-a-days, seems to think that money comes in showers, whenever it is wanted; that’s a mistake; a penny at a time-that’s the way we got ours; that’s the Harry and you will have to get yours” (Fern 12).  She is supposed to be a good Christian and yet she won’t give her own daughter-in-law a penny if she needs it.  However, she doesn’t have any problem taking her daughter-in-law’s pension money from her.  She is always lecturing Ruth on how to be a better person, yet she is the biggest hypocrite that ever works this planet. “It is my opinion the child’s death was owing to the thriftlessness of her mother. I don’t mourn for it, because I believe the poor thing is better off” (Fern 50).  What a cruel thing to say about a mother who just lost her child; the child being your own granddaughter.

            The climax of the novel for me is Ruth’s success.  Although Ruth is very intelligent, she is also very humble.  She suffers a lot, but she does not let her pain get the best of her.  As a matter of fact, Ruth uses her pain and suffering to motivate herself and improves as a person.  I love how she proved to everyone she could succeed.  I would have paid anything to see the look in her mother-in-law’s face when she found out the book she loves so much had been written by non-other than her hatred daughter-in-law.  “Impossible! Screamed the old lady, growing very red in the face, and clearing her throat most vigorously” (Fern 261).  Ruth would not have said in your face, but I would.  I thought that was the best part of the book.                   

Works Cited

Fern, Fanny. Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time. New York. Penguin Group, 1997. Print.

Blog Five

Hello, my name is Annalice Weatherly, and I am a student at LaGuardia Community college.  This blog is for my class ENG 260, The Novel; in it, are my related answers to what I think the novel Kindred by Octavia Butler is about.

Kindred is about slavery and the physical plus emotional toll that it put upon the black people. The author approached a different style than most slave narrative did, which makes the story even more unique and interesting. Nevertheless, the book is still about slavery. The main character Dana, was unconsciously summoned whenever Rufus, the son of a slave owner’s life was in danger. Dana made six involuntary journeys back in time to save Rufus life and was treated like a slave in each trip. She was beating, slept, worked, and talked to as if she was a slave.

In one occasion, Dana was whipped until she passed out because she attempted to teach the other slaves how to read and write. “I treated you good” Said Weyin quietly “and you pay me back by stealing from me!” Tom Weyin, the plantation owner saw education as treat because if the slaves learned how to read and write, then they would be able to write passes and escaped. Consequently, he punished Dana for trying to educate the slaves. On Dana’s second trip to Maryland, she accoutered a white man who beat and tried to rape her like they did with most female slaves. Dana had to learn how to live in the plantation as a slave while trying to save Rufus life and to ensure the birth of one of her direct ancestors. Only then can she go back home. Hence, she did her best to live as a slave and did what she had to, to guarantee her own survival.            

Hello, my name is Annalice Weatherly, and I am a student at LaGuardia Community college.  This blog is for my class ENG 260, The Novel; in it, are my related answers to a specific part of the novel If He Hollers Let Him Go by Himes Chester.

If He Hollers Let Him Go, is a story of a colored man who faces a lot of obstacles and lives in fear for everyday in his life as a consequence to the color of his skin.

The ship closet’s  scene when Bob and Madge are discovered together is where one of  the catharsis scenes of the novel happens; in that scene, the readers experience so many tragic emotions such as fear, pity, anger, and the impression of a white female being raped by a black male. “Help! Help! My God, help me! Some white man, help me! I’m being raped” (Himes 180). Madge screaming for help is supposedly an indication of fear. Allegedly, she is under attack and needs help. Depend on the reader’s thoughts, he/she might sympathize with her because she is supposed to be a raped victim. On the hand, one might pity Bob because he is discovered in what appears to be a sexual scene between him, (a black man) and a white woman in the early 1940s where consent sexual relationships between blacks and whites didn’t exist.  If that was to happen, it would simply be called raped and they would be dire consequences to be paid.

Madge screams, “Some white man, help me” (Himes 180)! The words “white man” are Madge’s ways of stating out her help preferences. She is also reminding Bob of his status and values in her world; a world where it does not make a difference if Bob is a male and she is a female. Whether female or not, Madge dominates over him and she can easily get him hang simply because she is white and he is black. In a normal circumstance if a female is in fear of being raped and screams for help, she does not discriminates against her helper. However, in Madge’s world, she and her despicable character rightly believe whites are superior to blacks because that is what her society teaches her. Hence, instead of just screaming for help, she screams, some’ white man’, help me! Bob’s skin color, which is black, classifies him as a fiend that the “whites” need to protect themselves from before he gets the chance to commit a monstrous act against them.