Cane poems con't

Out of all the poems I liked Calling Jesus the best. I could be totally off base with my interpretation of this poem but I'm going to say it anyways. What I get from this poem is that this is a story about a black women with a great and energetic soul about her. They compare her soul to that of a puppy. So I take it that on the outside this women is full of love and happiness and shows kindness to everyone. But when she goes home every night her soul is "placed in the vestibule" meaning she leaves her soul at the front door. I take this as what she is like during the day is not who she truly is. She leaves her spirit at the front door so when she leaves during the day she can pick up this soul as a way of hiding the real person underneath. She is under a facade of happiness when in reality she isn't who she appears to be.

Cane Poems

Honestly, I did not really understand much if anything of what I read in the poems for Cane. So I guess I will just talk about "Becky." I guess this poem was written to show us that prejudice does not just lie with the white people but blacks as well. Becky was a white lady who had a child by a black man and now she is hated by all. The tone of this poem is at first very angry and hateful. They pretty much want her dead since she is "unclean" now. But it goes on to show that even though society is racist and prejudice there are still some decent people out there. The one man who built the one house for her to stay in though wanted to remain annonoymous showed that some people still have compasion even though society doesn't. Then the tone goes to almost an appologetic tone as they see the oldest son carrying a baby around letting everyone know she had another child by a black man. But, by the son carrying the child around leads everyone to believe she is dead since no one has seen her and now their hate turns to fear as they feel if she is dead her ghost will be haunting everyone. So it shows you that you need to becareful of what you do and say to people because it will come back to bite you. I know I pretty much summed up the poem but I really did not know what to write since I didn't understand the poems.

2nd Post

Over all I thought that this book was interesting and a good read but the ending was not good at all. What I thought was really interesting about the ending of the book was when he witnessed the lynching. First everyone is meeting at night almost to cover up what they are doing since the man probably never did commit a crime. But after he witnessed it everything about him changed. It hit him with a great force of realization that no matter what he thought or felt the blacks will not be treated the same as the white folks. He said he never in his life saw the transformation of human beings into savage beasts as they yelled burn him. He even went to far as to mention that people would not even treat animals they way they treated this black man.

But the thing I found to be most interesting was the part that held the biggest discussion in class. I believe it starts on page 190 just after the savage killing of the black man. It says " I finally made up my mind that I would neither disclaim the black race nor claim the white race; but that I would change my name, raise a mustache, and let the world take me for what it would; that it was not necessary for me to go about with a label of inferiority pasted on my forehead." There was a lot of debate whether or not this man was a coward for turning his back on his own people or if we could sympathize for what he is doing. I really don't think he is a coward since he never even had to embrace the black people it was his choice. He didn't find out till he was older that he was different than everyone else. He is mixed half black and half white. No i'm not saying overlook who you are I think everyone should be proud to be what they are. But the narrator is not doing it out of cowardice notions it's almost self preservation. If by looking at him and you cannot tell he is different than everyone else why point it out? But to say he is a coward for turning against the black people can the whites then say he is a coward for turning his back on the white people? It is extremely difficult to embrace fully who you are especially when one part of you is despised by the other part. So, no he is not a coward it is all about saving himself, self preservation everyone will chose that path since it is human nature to save oneself before you save another.

First Blog Assignment

What I found to be interesting about the book we have to read was when he had already move North and in the school he attended they had the meeting. When the man I think it was the principal of the school to have a meeting with his class. He asked all the white children to stand and as he stood with the "whites" the teacher told him to sit down and stand with the rest of them. I found it to be very interesting that for all this time he had no idea that he was "different" from everyone else. Even though he was part white to them he was not equal in a way.
All of a sudden he didn't fit in anywhere. He did not want to be close to the colored students and he felt he didn't belong with the white students. Everything about the way he thought about people even his relationships with his friends have changed. He says now "he is forced to take his outlook on all things, not from the view-point of a citizen, or a man, or even a human being, but from the view point of a coloured man."(p21). It was almost as if this discovery of him not being white anymore he was no longer a citizen or even a human being for that matter. It's amazing how your mind and your way of thinking can all of a sudden radically change when you realize something that has been kept from you your whole life.

Welcome!

Hey everyone!!!