Friday, September 26, 2008
Race Relations Differences Between the North and South
These stories both had similar plots and thematic devices and what I thought was most interesting about both of them was the way that neither protagonist could understand the way that blacks and whites interracted with each other in New York. Both of them had had incredibly close black friends in the south, but were unable to adapt to the way that people behave in a big city. Old Dudley and was extremely close to Rabie and had spent almost all of his free time with him in the south, but when he came to North and met a black person who was friendly with him but who behaved as if he believed they were equals he was upset that things weren't the way that he thought they should be. Tanner was also disturbed by the way that his black neighbor didn't respond to his desire to become fast friends. Tanner was dependant on his constant companion Coleman and couldn't deal with being rejected by a black man who he wanted to be friends with. It was interesting that while both of these men were racist and acted in a totally dominant manner towards their new black neighbors in the North, they both had depended on their relationships with blacks in the South.
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2 comments:
I'm wondering about your use of protagonists to describe the old men. I don't know if I would call them protagonists of the stories. Yes, they are the main characters but protagonists are the heroes of the stories. I don't think either Old Dudley or Tanner were heroes. Neither of them are able to make progress in the story. Perhaps if I had to pick one I would say Old Dudley is more of a hero because he survives the story but it hardly ends on a happy note for him. He's not dead but he's trapped and unable to let go. It almost seems like his spirit is dead though, smashed like the flower.
I would disagree. They could be considered "flawed" heroes. Protagonist doesn't even mean hero necessarily, it's just the main character, the lead, or can be hero. In Greek drama, where the term was created, it's usually the first person to talk to the chorus.
And they DO move the story. They might not make progress for themselves, like, they are still stuck in their own ways, but they still move the story. They do not move the story in a traditional fashion, because we are stuck in their heads most of the time, but there is progress and character development and they help the reader come to conclusions based off of what their experiences are.
In a very Western/Greek sense, maybe we wouldn't consider them protagonists. But we've come a long way in seeing different types of literature that questions who the protagonist is, and what they got accomplished. It is also clear that in both O'Connor and Porter stories, all the "heroes" are flawed. And they change. We think we will side with one person, or follow one person's story, and then it changes. That would have never happened in Greek drama, and it rarely happens in pop culture and Western literature. We like to have one clear hero, and stick with him/her until the end. We don't like them to be flawed. That might be why we have a hard time feeling for these main characters.
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