Break this World's Shell

  EDIT 2: I made more The Catcher in the Rye... things... on my other blog.   Venn Diagram Crossover with DNA (2007), a play I studied and performed in my previous school before I transferred.   EDIT: In retrorespect, I should probably apologize to Mr. Mitchell for doing this topic despite my relative ignorance of counterculture.  In The Catcher in the Rye (1951) by J. D. Salinger, the protagonist Holden Caulfield spends much of the book in a state of alienation from his surrounding culture, and believing, as teenagers are wont to do, that he is the only person to ever feel this way (something Mr Antolini specifically calls him out on when trying to convince him to put effort into his studies). This alienation from the mainstream is a defining feature of alt cultures such as punk, goth, and emo. I don’t know so much about goth culture, but I know a smattering about punks and emos, so they will be the main focus of this post.  Having considered the matter, I pers...

 Main text

 Note: this is not my Libra post, this is part of something that I wrote for American History Through Popular Culture (heavily recommended btw) that I thought was relevant to the concept of History as Fiction. Malcolm X follows the titular character from his beginnings as the teenage hustler Detroit Red and, while dipping strategically into his childhood in flashback sequences, follows him as his career leads him to a years-long prison sentence. In prison, Malcolm Little meets Baines, a member of the Nation of Islam (NOI), who encourages Little to educate himself, and to recognize and dismantle the destructive influence of the white-dominant culture around him by becoming part of the sect. Malcolm is swayed, and converts to the Nation of Islam’s beliefs. Although this largely not mentioned in the film, it is important to note that the Nation of Islam’s beliefs differed from those of mainstream Sunni Islam during the timeframe of the movie. After his release from prison six years af...

President John Fitzgerald Kennedy has only one real appearance in Libra, but despite that, he holds a powerful presence in the narrative. John was the first president to readily make good use of the medium of television to communicate with the public, often through his live press conferences, and accordingly in Libra much of the populace is presented as having opinions on him (“John F. Kennedy and the Press”).      A certain fraction of the women in the novel are portrayed as being attracted to Kennedy: for example, Brenda Jean Sensibaugh, a stripper at Jack Ruby’s nightclub, has a discussion with another stripper on which of the Kennedy brothers they would rather have sex with Similarly, Marina also fantasizes at one point that she is making love to Kennedy instead of Lee, the narration describing his presence floating  out of the radio and the television. Marina wonders what it must be like “To know you are the subject of a thousand longings.” (p. 324, DeLillo) Thi...

 Three women who all faced rape or the threat thereof on the plantation. Sarah lives through rape at the hands of Tom Weylin, and recounts her experiences to Dana. All of her children are sold off except for Carrie, who is disabled. Recalling this fact makes her display a “Quiet, almost frightening anger” (p76). Dana views Sarah as an Uncle Tom, or a Mammy, earlier in the book. The young Rufus calls her “Aunt Sarah” (p86) which Dana reflects on as being better than Mammy. Sarah is considerably more perceptive of the more vile aspects of Rufus’s personality than Dana is, at least at first.  Ironically, although Dana accuses Sarah of having been cowed into submission, she in turn is seen as being too white by Alice, who calls her “white [n-word],” in an outburst. Dana’s knowledge and what is perceived as preferential treatment by the whites also leads more generally to people disliking her (such as in Lisa’s case) or, later on, the assumption that Rufus is raping her. Although D...

 I think that generally Ishmael Reed takes a very iconoclastic approach to Christianity, aligning it with the Templars, the crusaders, and the Wallflower Order (the central antagonists of the book) and making its existence in the ultimate form a mere disguise for Atonism. I think this is meant to be a satirical caricature of Christianity and monotheism as a whole, similar to the arguments about the significance of Abdul Sufi Hamid’s lampoons as was discussed in class. This interpretation is furthered by Reed’s own words in an outside interview: “I’m not against Christianity. I only want to humble it, like it says it ought to be.”[1]  Reed’s portrayal of Christianity, and to a greater extent monotheism, is wide-reaching in and beyond the novel: Moses, an important figure in all the Abrahamic religions, is depicted as a cultural appropriator, an ancient Elvis who commits the original sin—under Set’s goading—of reading the book in its Petro aspect. Outside of Mumbo Jumbo, Reed’s ...

Sarah is extremely separated from the family at first, though, and this very much remains the case: they don’t even know her last name, and they seemingly don’t know her first name either before Coalhouse mentions it—the boy, who always notices more, “realized he meant the woman in the attic” (p155). Her rejection of Coalhouse coming to see her is the most that she says to the family, over months and months. Even after she grows closer to them, she doesn’t feel like she can tell any of them about her plan to petition the Vice President on behalf of Coalhouse. Even outside of the family, she is noted to have no connections to the Black community downtown, and to be a “transient element” who came here from out of town. This shows Sarah’s continual isolation, and the lack of knowledge on part of the writer is similar to how Coalhouse is treated with uncertainty.  Coalhouse’s courtship of her is sweet—he is originally what prompts her to speak, he visits her and brings gifts to both he...