Morrison and Douglass: The Power of Personal Encounters and Literacy, Summaries of Business

Download Morrison and Douglass: The Power of Personal Encounters and Literacy and more Summaries Business in PDF only on Docsity! MIDTERM NOTES (ENGL 1301) “STRANGERS” - TONI MORRISON​ (p. 129) ABOUT TONI MORRISON (1931-present) - African-American novelist & professor - Her famous novels include ​Beloved ​(1987)​, The Bluest Eye​ (1970), & many others “STRANGERS” — essay written to accompany a collection of photographs ● Toni Morrison discusses a strange incident she had once with a quirky old fisherwoman, and uses this story to go off into a discussion of how media images shape the way we view other people & even prevent us from really getting to know the strangers we meet. She’s walking along her property one day when she spots this eccentric old fisherwoman fishing on the edge of her neighbor’s property - She calls her ​“Mother Something” ​because she can’t remember her real name — Toni finds the old lady instantly amusing: she’s wearing funny clothes & a funny hat, she seems to be full of “old lady wisdom.” She’s a character. - Toni comments that the old woman ​“reminds [me] of someone, something...” (p.129) They talk for only about 15 minutes, but already Toni Morrison starts imagining their future friendship, and she forms this story in her head about how she’s going to invite her in for tea, and they’ll sit and chat about life, and it’ll be charming and easy, etc. Then they say good-bye, and Toni never sees the old woman again. She goes and asks the neighbors, and no one knows who she is. Toni starts to think maybe she just imagined her or something. At first she brushes it off as just a funny incident, but as time goes on she keeps thinking about it and starts to become more and more upset, though she can’t understand why... - “I get nowhere except for the stingy explanation that she had come into my space (next to it, anyway — at the property line, at the edge, just at the fence, where the most interesting things always happen), and had implied promises of female camaraderie, of opportunities for me to be generous, of protection and protecting. ​Now she is gone, taking with her my good opinion of myself,​ which of course is unforgivable.” ​(p. 130) - What exactly does she mean by this? - Basically, Toni concludes that the reason she’s so upset is because she had formed this whole story in her head about what role the old fisherwoman was going to play in her life — as a funny, quirky little friend, someone for Toni Morrison to be generous to, etc. — and Toni liked the idea of that story. She liked the way ​she herself ​looked & felt in that story. - But then the old woman disappeared and RUINED EVERYTHING. She stole Toni Morrison’s fantasy-image away from her, and this bruised Toni’s ego. Toni Morrison realizes that deep down she felt this weird kind of ​ownership​ over the old fisherwoman right off the bat. She wanted to have her in her life like a charming side character or an amusing novelty: “This is my eccentric old fisherwoman, isn’t she funny?” - She wasn’t really interested in who the old fisherwoman was as a person in her own right, but only about what role she could play in the story of Toni Morrison — only as the 1-dimensional character that Toni Morrison was imagining her to be in her head. - The only reason Toni was interested in her in the first place was because she was ​weird​ — she didn’t fit any conventional image of how people are supposed to look, and Toni liked that. “My instant embrace of an outrageously dressed fisherwoman was due in part to an image on which my representation of her was based. I immediately ​sentimentalized ​and appropriated ​her. ​I owned her or wanted to​ (and I suspect she glimpsed it).” ​(p.131) From there Toni goes on to talk about how media images can shape the way we view other people — usually oversimplifying people or presenting them only as a single way, so that we forget that they are just as complex and multi-layered as we ourselves are. - “Routine media presentations deploy images and language that ​narrow our view of what humans look like​ (or ought to look like) and what in fact we are like.” ​(p.131) Flattening people to only a single image, trying to sort them into easy boxes or narratives, can make strangers easier to deal with in a way — but it also keeps us from really knowing them. - “Why would we want to know a stranger when it is easier to estrange another? Why would we want to close the distance when we can close the gap?”​ (p.131) - Other people are difficult. They are not flat and 1-dimensional, and they don’t easily fit into the boxes we might want to make for them. They are complicated and unpredictable, which can be scary. - Strangers may be different from us, but they also ​aren’t​.​ Just like we view ourselves as the main characters of our own lives, every stranger we meet is the main character of their ​own life. It’s easy to forget that sometimes, because it’s a fact that can be hard to deal with. - Morrison argues that it’s important to remember that the strangers we meet are just as complicated and fully human as we are ourselves: “​There are no strangers. There are only versions of ourselves... For the stranger is not foreign, she is random, not alien but remembered; and it is the randomness of the encounter with our already known — although unacknowledged — selves that summons a ripple of alarm. That makes us reject the figure and the emotions it provokes — especially when these emotions are profound. It is also what makes us want to own, govern, administrate the Other. To romance her, if we can, back into our own mirrors. ​In either instance (of alarm or false reverence), we deny her personhood, the specific individuality we insist upon for ourselves.​” (p.131) - “These were choice documents to me. I read them over and over again with unabated interest. They gave tongue to interesting thoughts of my own soul, which had frequently flashed through my mind, and died away for want of utterance... The reading of these documents enabled me to utter my thoughts, and to meet the arguments brought forward to sustain slavery.” (p.406) - However, for a time he goes through periods of deep despair where he almost wishes he hadn’t learned how to read, because he feels now even more aware of his terrible situation, but without a clear way to escape it. - “I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy... In moments of agony, I envied my fellow slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast.” ​(p.406) - Being completely brainless & unthinking would be less painful than being trapped in this situation and fully aware of how unjust it is. - And yet, learning to read is what really lights the fire in him to gain his freedom — he wanted it before, but he slowly becomes more and more determined to get it: - “The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever. It was heard in every sound, and seen in every thing. It was ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. I saw nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm.” (p.406) And of course, eventually, he did get it! And he probably wouldn’t have if he’d never learned to read and write. Education was the necessary first step towards his freedom. —————————————————————————————————————————— “SHOOTING AN ELEPHANT” - GEORGE ORWELL (p. 750) ABOUT GEORGE ORWELL (1903-1950) - British novelist & essayist, mostly wrote during the 1940s-50s (WW2 era) - In his younger years, he served as a soldier under the British Army in Burma, during the time when India and Burma were all part of the British Empire’s colonies. This experience shaped a lot of his political views later in life — especially his hatred towards oppression and tyranny. - Most famous novels: - Animal Farm​: about a group of animals on a farm who overthrow the farmer & try to set up a communist animal utopia, only for the pigs to end up becoming corrupt tyrants just as oppressive as the humans. Allegory for Stalin & the USSR. - Nineteen Eighty-Four​: a classic dystopian novel about a future world where everything is controlled by an oppressive totalitarian state that constantly spies on its citizens and stamps out even the slightest sign of rebellion. - He also wrote tons of essays — most of the time his writings focused on themes of anti-totalitarianism, anti-authoritarianism, anti-imperialism... just anti-tyranny in general. Very insightful about humanity’s tendency toward corruption and the ways that powerful people scheme to keep power over the powerless. “SHOOTING AN ELEPHANT” - autobiographical essay/short story about Orwell’s experiences as a soldier in British-occupied Burma. - Story begins with young George serving the British Imperial Army in Burma, and all the Burmese people hate him. - He has very mixed-up and confused feelings about his situation. On the one hand, seeing how the Burmese people are oppressed under British rule has made him disgusted with the Empire and he secretly kinda hates it and hopes that the Burmese people will gain their freedom... - On the other hand, since the Burmese people are mean to him (because they see him as just another British soldier), he kinda hates them too? He’s just very torn and confused. - “All this was perplexing and upsetting. For at that time I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better. Theoretically — and secretly, of course — I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British...” ​(p.750) - “All I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible. With one part of my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down, in ​saecula saeculorum, ​upon the will of prostrate peoples; with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest’s guts. ​Feelings like these are the normal byproducts of imperialism;​ ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catch him off duty.” ​(p.751) - Basically he’s like, yeah, all these feelings I had were confusing and messed up, but that’s just what happens when you have an oppressive system like imperialism. - Similar to Mistress Auld in Frederick Douglass’s story, Orwell is naturally empathetic towards the oppressed people (the Burmese), but the tyrannical system twists everything and brings out his cruel side. So he goes on to tell this story of an unfortunate incident with an elephant, which he says ​“gave [him] a better glimpse than [he] had had before of the real nature of imperialism — the real motives for which despotic governments act.” ​(p.751) - One day he’s just minding his business, when he hears news that an elephant has gotten loose and is going on a destructive rampage through town. The elephant has an owner, but unfortunately no one can find the owner, and the elephant is in heat which means it’s acting kinda crazy. - So Orwell goes out looking for the elephant, and at first it takes him so long to find it that he thinks maybe the whole story is made up... until he finds an unlucky Indian man who was trampled to death by the elephant. - So after he sees the dead guy, he’s like, “I should probably go get my gun.” He doesn’t intend to actually kill the elephant, but he wants it for self defense just in case. - Unfortunately, some of the Burmese people see him get the gun, and they all assume that he’s going to go shoot the elephant. So they start getting all excited and worked up, like it’s a big show, and end up following Orwell through town to watch him shoot the elephant. Eventually he gets a ​huge ​crowd following him — like 2,000 people! - Finally he finds the elephant, and by this point the elephant has calmed down and is just minding its own business. He says it looks as harmless as a cow, and it’s pretty clear that it’s not going to do any more damage. There’s no need to shoot it — and on top of that, elephants are expensive and he knows that he ​shouldn’t ​shoot it. On top of that, he just doesn’t want to shoot it... - However, he slowly realizes that he ​has ​to shoot it, ​because the crowd is watching him. This leads him to his big revelation about the true nature of imperialism: - “They were watching me as they would a conjurer about to perform a trick. They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching. And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me, and I had got to do it.” ​(p.753) - DEINDIVIDUATION going on here, with both the crowd and with George: - The crowd is caught up in the excitement, urging him to shoot the elephant even though it’s not logical. - Orwell is not part of the crowd, but he is wearing the uniform of the British Empire, which means he is acting now as a soldier & representative of the empire rather than an individual human being. - “And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man’s dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd — seemingly the leading actor of the pieace; but in reality ​I was only an absurd puppet​ pushed to and fro... I perceived in this moment that ​when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.​”​ (p.753) - This is the big revelation he has: THOSE WHO HOLD POWER OVER OTHERS END UP BECOMING ENSLAVED TO THAT POWER. - Orwell should be the one in control here, he should be able to decide not to shoot the elephant, but he can’t. He can’t do what ​he ​wants, he has to do what the people expect him to do, because if he doesn’t then he might look weak or cowardly or foolish — and that can’t be allowed. - “For it is the condition of [the tyrant’s] rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the ‘natives,’ and so in every crisis he has got to do what the ‘natives’ expect of him. ​He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.​” ​(p.753)