Posts

The Theatricality of Libra: Violence vs Spectacle

Image
When I started to read Libra, one of the most prominent thoughts in my head was something along the lines of “this reminds me of a theater play.” Lee Harvey Oswald (and many of the characters) were depicted as very dramatic and intense characters who seemed to be acting and writing for a larger audience ( evidenced by fake historian Nicolas Branch). All the people in the book, Lee especially, seem to be garishly acting for a bigger cause; the scene where I was most reminded of this was when Win Everett was making materials for the murder, like a backstage techie, and how the trio of “planners” meticulously set everything up so everyone could be prepared to act– characters like Raymo and TJ Mackey are very two–dimensional and typical of like a mobster movie, creating a compelling and interesting backplot that could or could not be true, because DeLillo doesn’t exactly say. It reminds me of theater, where actors have to act more enthusiastically or emotionally in order to express emotion...
9 comments
Read more

Losing Dana's Arm in Kindred: How it's connected to the broader narrative

     In Kindred, by far the most interesting and symbolic part is when Dana’s arm molds into the wall at the end. It’s the part we know about during the prequel and the part we continue to keep in mind as the book goes on. A big part of this book and how we’ve looked into it is the impact it has on Dana and Kevin, and how it takes away from them and damages their brains throughout the book. As Octavia Butler says in an interview after making the book and choosing to meld Dana’s arm in the wall, she says, “I couldn’t really let her come all the way back. I couldn’t let her return to what she was, I couldn’t let her come back whole and that, I think really symbolizes her not coming back whole. Antebellum slavery didn’t leave people quite whole.” (Butler 267)      A big part of this removal of self that Butler is characterizing and symbolizing happens in how the characters are forced to view and sometimes experience physical violence. It becomes, especially fo...
3 comments
Read more

What does Hinckle Von Vampton represent?

Hinckle Von Vampton is by far the most cartoonish and satirical character in this novel, mocked by Reed’s postmodernist irony throughout the book. He is meant to mimic a historical figure named Carl Van Vechten, a white man who promoted and represented black culture during the Harlem Renaissance and also some black stereotypes, which I think is where a lot of satirical imagery comes from here. Von Vampton is depicted as a controlling man who is an indeterminable number of centuries old, having worked with the Wallflower Order for many years to take down forms of Jes Grew and keep Antonists in control (Reed 56). They discover that Jes Grew has emerged in America, particularly in New Orleans, and attempt to destroy it over the course of the book. They create a faulty master plan to begin a newspaper called the Benign Monster to disrupt and eventually overpower Jes Grew.  Most of all, I feel this plotline really plays up the cartoon character aspect of Von Vampton’s story; he might a...
7 comments
Read more

Themes of Imprisonment in Ragtime

In E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime, he describes several characters as being trapped or imprisoned within society in various ways. He uses that harsh language with a couple of characters, deeply layered with irony. For example, Houdini’s main issue is his inability to achieve true freedom. While ironic because he is a famous escape artist known for being able to get out of anything, he struggles to impress an elite like Harry K. Thaw. In the scene where he escapes into Thaw’s prison, Thaw makes fun of him by undressing while he dresses, deeply disturbing Houdini. He mentions that people who don’t respect his art form always “broke through the pretense of his life and made him feel foolish (chapter 5).” It made it hard for him to recreate the wonder of the tricks he performed to these people, who saw him as kind of a party trick. He also struggled immensely with the death of his mother, becoming somewhat preoccupied with the afterlife, necromancy, and often performing intensely dangerous s...
6 comments
Read more