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4.35 AVERAGE
4.35 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
In these lectures-turned-essays, Morrison provides a very suggestive approach to the critical study of classic American literature. Arguing that literary whiteness is constituted against literary blackness—freedom against slavery, innocence against experience, civilization against savagery—she calls for the study of what she names as Africanism in literature produced by white writers. This is not so much for the purpose of critical subversion or ideological rallying as for the richer, more complex, and more nuanced study of American literature. She demonstrates this approach in brief analyses of Willa Cather's Sapphira and the Slave Girl, Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, and Hemingway's novels. I wish she had more room, in either the lecture series or the book publication, to deploy the approach to the works of Thoreau and Henry James, both reckoned to be American masters. The comment on Melville's Moby Dick is useful but brief.
The perspective adopted throughout is not that of a scholar or professional critic, but that of a writer. Being a writer myself, I very much appreciate that stance towards reading and exegesis. Here's Morrison championing, but also critiquing, the powers of writing:
The perspective adopted throughout is not that of a scholar or professional critic, but that of a writer. Being a writer myself, I very much appreciate that stance towards reading and exegesis. Here's Morrison championing, but also critiquing, the powers of writing:
Writers are among the most sensitive, the most intellectually anarchic, most representative, most probing of artists. The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power. The languages they yse and the social and historical context in which these languages signify are indirect and direct revelations of that power and its limitations. So it is to them, the creators of American literature, that I look for clarification about the invention and effect of Africanism in the United States.
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Professor Morrison uses her experience as an author to describe how White American authors have consciously and unconsciously projected their fears and desires on the Africans they brought to the new world as slaves. As she puts it,
Using examples from Willa Cather, Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, and Ernest Hemingway she points out that these projections tell us more about the the dominant White American culture than about Black Americans.
Her prose in this book is that of an academic in the lecture hall, and I missed the fluid grace, an outstanding characteristic of her prose fiction, but her points are well made, including her caution about dismissing race as a topic not fit for literary criticism.
As a writer reading, I came to realize the obvious: the subject of the dream is the dreamer. The fabrication of Africanist persona is reflexive; an extraordinary meditation on the self; a powerful exploration of the fears and desires that reside in the writerly conscious. It is an astounding revelation of longing, of terror, of perplexity, of shame, of magnanimity. (page 17)
The slave population, it could be assumed, offered itself up as surrogate selves for meditations on problems of human freedom, its lure and its elusiveness. This black population was available for meditations on terror—the terror of European outcasts, their dread of failure, powerlessness, Nature without limits, natal loneliness, internal aggression, evil, sin, greed. (pages 37-38)
Using examples from Willa Cather, Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, and Ernest Hemingway she points out that these projections tell us more about the the dominant White American culture than about Black Americans.
Her prose in this book is that of an academic in the lecture hall, and I missed the fluid grace, an outstanding characteristic of her prose fiction, but her points are well made, including her caution about dismissing race as a topic not fit for literary criticism.
When matters of race are located and called attention to in American Literature, critical response has tended to be on the order of a humanistic nostrum—or, a dismissal mandated by the label “political.” Excising the political from the life of the mind is a sacrifice that has proven costly. I think of this as a kind of trembling hypochondria always curing itself with unnecessary surgery. A criticism that needs to insist that literature is not only “universal” but also “race-free” risks lobotomizing that literature, and diminishes both the art and the artist. (page 12)
Recent reread. Argues that American literature (and culture) develops its ideas of liberty, independence, humanity, civilization, whiteness from a suppressed and subjugated blackness. Persuasive the first time, persuasive now. Elides the presence/influence/enforced absence of American Indians a bit, though; would like to find a follow-up on that.
Playing in the Dark is a book of theory and essays that explore how American literature has used blackness and black characters as symbols to support a white ego. It’s an important read, a book that diagnoses the white imaginary.
The book is surprisingly short, made up of an introduction and three essays, but it doesn’t feel like it’s missing anything. Morrison is a writer who you can tell has a background in fiction. I find that some critical theory can drone on and on rather dryly, but Morrison’s essays are succinct and riveting.
Again, I would recommend that anyone read this book.
The book is surprisingly short, made up of an introduction and three essays, but it doesn’t feel like it’s missing anything. Morrison is a writer who you can tell has a background in fiction. I find that some critical theory can drone on and on rather dryly, but Morrison’s essays are succinct and riveting.
Again, I would recommend that anyone read this book.
challenging
informative
medium-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
A beautiful work of literary criticism, one that takes a frank and honest look at whiteness and the role that it plays in shaping the entirety of what we could call the American Classics. Morrison brings whiteness to the forefront, and instead of focusing on the objects/experiencers of racism, she looks at the subjects/perpetrators. If American literature is formed against this apparent shame and horror of the dark, specifically the Black Other, than it stands to reason that whiteness itself should be looked at within the relationship of this identity. Especially in how it is reified and continually looked at by the primarily white writers that schools and academia have decided are the Classics of the USA.
Even when blackness and Black folk are not explicitly mentioned in texts, their presence, as Morrison argues is always there, and it's impossible to fully analyze American literature without looking at it. Whiteness is named and critiqued, and I cannot believe I went through a four year English degree without having a single professor assign this reading, not even once.
Even when blackness and Black folk are not explicitly mentioned in texts, their presence, as Morrison argues is always there, and it's impossible to fully analyze American literature without looking at it. Whiteness is named and critiqued, and I cannot believe I went through a four year English degree without having a single professor assign this reading, not even once.
If only all literary criticism and theory were as well-written, clear, and concise as [b:Toni Morrison|6149|Beloved|Toni Morrison|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165555299s/6149.jpg|736076]'s Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. Morrison's central argument in this book is a fairly simple one, that "the contemplation of this black presence [in American history and literature:] is central to any understanding of our national literature and should not be permitted to hover at the margins of the literary imagination" (5). She dedicates herself in this book to exploring the ways in which blackness is used within traditional, canonical (in other words, white) American literature, the ways in which it is always present, even when it is not acknowledged.
She names the set of relations and representations that she studies here American Africanism and describes it as "an investigation into the ways in which a nonwhite, Africanlike (or Africanist) presence or persona was constructed in the United States, and the imaginative uses this fabricated presence served" (6).
In the first essay in this book, "Black Matters," she focuses on exploring the reasons behind the omission of American Africanism in literary discourse and, in doing so, presents arguments for the necessity of repairing this omission. One such argument is that "the pattern of thinking about racialism in terms of its consequences on the victim--of always defining it assymetrically [sic:] from the perspective of its impact on the object of racist policy and attitudes"--does not address the complete range of problems that accompany racism (or racialism). In addition to studying the impact of racism on the victims, we must also study "the impact of racism on those who perpetuate it" (11). Looking at the place of blackness in white literature will help with this project.
She also addresses the idea that art is human, universal, and, ideally, apolitical, contending that "[a:] criticism that needs to insist that literature is not only 'universal' but also 'race-free' risks lobotomizing that literature, and diminishes both the art and the artist" (12). Race (like gender, sexuality, religion, etc.) will always be a part of a living literature. Sometimes it will be at the heart of a work of literature and sometimes it won't, but as long as we humans think in terms of racial categories, it will be present in some way. So to pretend that it is not present, that it does not color our representations and modes of storytelling, is to rob literature of some of its meaning.
In the second essay of the book, "Romancing the Shadow," Morrison discusses Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym in order to examine the use of whiteness in conjunction with blackness (as occurs, for instance, at the end of Poe's novel, as well as in Melville, Faulkner, and Hemingway, all acknowledged giants of American literature). She writes, "These images of impenetrable whiteness need contextualizing to explain their extraordinary power, pattern, and consistency. Because they appear almost always in conjunction with representations of black or Africanist people who are dead, impotent, or under complete control, these images of blinding whiteness seem to function as both antidote for and meditation on the shadow that is companion to this whiteness--a dark and abiding presence that moves the hearts and texts of American literature with fear and longing" (33). If the American dream is to be free and the immigrant's dream of American is to have a clean slate on which to begin again, Morrison argues that the black bodies of slaves provided a counterpoint to these dreams, something against which to more clearly define those dreams. It is something that cannot be explicitly acknowledged, but it is something that permeates American literature and ideology. She writes, "It was this Africanism, deployed as rawness and savagery, that provided the staging ground and arena for the elaboration of the quintessential American identity" (44). She concludes this essay by writing, "If we follow through on the self-reflexive nature of these encounters with Africanism, it falls clear: images of blackness can be evil and protective, rebellious and forgiving, fearful and desirable--all of the self-contradictory features of the self. Whiteness, alone, is mute, meaningless, unfathomable, pointless, frozen, veiled, curtained, dreaded, senseless, implacable. Or so our writers seem to say" (59).
In the third and final essay, "Disturbing Nurses and the Kindness of Sharks," Morrison attempts "to observe and trace the transformation of American Africanism from its simplistic, though menacing, purposes of establishing hierarchic difference [as described in "Romancing the Shadow":] to its surrogate properties as self-reflexive meditations on the loss of difference, to its lush and fully blossomed existence in the rhetoric of dread and desire" (63-4). She also re-states her purpose in writing this book: "Studies in American Africanism, in my view, should be investigations of the ways in which a nonwhite, Africanist presence and personae have been constructed--invented--in the United States, and of the literary uses this fabricated presence has served. . . . My project is an effort to avert the critical gaze from the racial object to the racial subject; from the described and imagined to the describers and imaginers; from the serving to the served" (90).
Since the publication of this book in 1992, the field of literary studies has actually opened up in this direction. Critical studies of whiteness and its construction have flourished, which prevents the racial subject, the describers and imaginers, from remaining invisible and unmarked and which also thereby makes it possible to imagine and create a world (both fictional and real) in which people of color are not limited to being the Other and are not the only people imagined to be affected by racism.
She names the set of relations and representations that she studies here American Africanism and describes it as "an investigation into the ways in which a nonwhite, Africanlike (or Africanist) presence or persona was constructed in the United States, and the imaginative uses this fabricated presence served" (6).
In the first essay in this book, "Black Matters," she focuses on exploring the reasons behind the omission of American Africanism in literary discourse and, in doing so, presents arguments for the necessity of repairing this omission. One such argument is that "the pattern of thinking about racialism in terms of its consequences on the victim--of always defining it assymetrically [sic:] from the perspective of its impact on the object of racist policy and attitudes"--does not address the complete range of problems that accompany racism (or racialism). In addition to studying the impact of racism on the victims, we must also study "the impact of racism on those who perpetuate it" (11). Looking at the place of blackness in white literature will help with this project.
She also addresses the idea that art is human, universal, and, ideally, apolitical, contending that "[a:] criticism that needs to insist that literature is not only 'universal' but also 'race-free' risks lobotomizing that literature, and diminishes both the art and the artist" (12). Race (like gender, sexuality, religion, etc.) will always be a part of a living literature. Sometimes it will be at the heart of a work of literature and sometimes it won't, but as long as we humans think in terms of racial categories, it will be present in some way. So to pretend that it is not present, that it does not color our representations and modes of storytelling, is to rob literature of some of its meaning.
In the second essay of the book, "Romancing the Shadow," Morrison discusses Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym in order to examine the use of whiteness in conjunction with blackness (as occurs, for instance, at the end of Poe's novel, as well as in Melville, Faulkner, and Hemingway, all acknowledged giants of American literature). She writes, "These images of impenetrable whiteness need contextualizing to explain their extraordinary power, pattern, and consistency. Because they appear almost always in conjunction with representations of black or Africanist people who are dead, impotent, or under complete control, these images of blinding whiteness seem to function as both antidote for and meditation on the shadow that is companion to this whiteness--a dark and abiding presence that moves the hearts and texts of American literature with fear and longing" (33). If the American dream is to be free and the immigrant's dream of American is to have a clean slate on which to begin again, Morrison argues that the black bodies of slaves provided a counterpoint to these dreams, something against which to more clearly define those dreams. It is something that cannot be explicitly acknowledged, but it is something that permeates American literature and ideology. She writes, "It was this Africanism, deployed as rawness and savagery, that provided the staging ground and arena for the elaboration of the quintessential American identity" (44). She concludes this essay by writing, "If we follow through on the self-reflexive nature of these encounters with Africanism, it falls clear: images of blackness can be evil and protective, rebellious and forgiving, fearful and desirable--all of the self-contradictory features of the self. Whiteness, alone, is mute, meaningless, unfathomable, pointless, frozen, veiled, curtained, dreaded, senseless, implacable. Or so our writers seem to say" (59).
In the third and final essay, "Disturbing Nurses and the Kindness of Sharks," Morrison attempts "to observe and trace the transformation of American Africanism from its simplistic, though menacing, purposes of establishing hierarchic difference [as described in "Romancing the Shadow":] to its surrogate properties as self-reflexive meditations on the loss of difference, to its lush and fully blossomed existence in the rhetoric of dread and desire" (63-4). She also re-states her purpose in writing this book: "Studies in American Africanism, in my view, should be investigations of the ways in which a nonwhite, Africanist presence and personae have been constructed--invented--in the United States, and of the literary uses this fabricated presence has served. . . . My project is an effort to avert the critical gaze from the racial object to the racial subject; from the described and imagined to the describers and imaginers; from the serving to the served" (90).
Since the publication of this book in 1992, the field of literary studies has actually opened up in this direction. Critical studies of whiteness and its construction have flourished, which prevents the racial subject, the describers and imaginers, from remaining invisible and unmarked and which also thereby makes it possible to imagine and create a world (both fictional and real) in which people of color are not limited to being the Other and are not the only people imagined to be affected by racism.