Month: June 2016

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What Does the Cover Say?

One topic that has always interested me is the visual representations of literary works. Visual artists from Gustave Dore and E.W. Kemble illustrated everything from Dante’s Divine Comedy (1320) to Paul Laurence Dunbar’s The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories (1900). Thinking about these visual representations along with the text provides an interesting conversation, not just regarding how the images and texts interact but how … Read More What Does the Cover Say?

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Constructing the “Past”

At the end of William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! (1936), Quentin and Shreve construct, without knowing the “true” events, the burning of the Sutpen house. Describing “the driver and the deputy” pulling Miss Colfield out of the inflamed house, the narrator states, “he (Quentin) could see her, them; he had not been there, but he could see her” (376). The construction of that scene conflates … Read More Constructing the “Past”

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Land in Ernest J. Gaines’s “A Gathering of Old Men”

Last post, I wrote about the appearance of the pronoun “they” in Ernest J. Gaines’s “The Sky is Gray.” In that story, “they” appears as a reference to ownership and power in the community that seeks to keep James and Octavia is subjugation so the invisible white landowners can maintain their position at the top of the social ladder. As James looks out of … Read More Land in Ernest J. Gaines’s “A Gathering of Old Men”

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Identity and Race in Two Hemingway Stories

I have written about Ernest Hemingway’s In Our Time (1925) a couple of times in relation to both Ernest J. Gaines and Langston Hughes. Today, I want to examine Hemingway’s “Indian Camp” and “Fathers and Sons” in relation to how he constructs identity and privilege for Nick Adams, the protagonist of each story. In both texts, Nick’s white privilege appears through the ways that … Read More Identity and Race in Two Hemingway Stories

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Miss Jane Pittman and the Temptation of Christ

After John the Baptist baptizes Jesus Christ in the gospels, Jesus goes into the desert for forty days and forty nights before beginning his ministry. During that time, Satan tempts Jesus three times with food, display of divination, and dominion over the world. Jesus does not succumb to these temptations, and he rebukes Satan with scripture, ultimately defeating him. As I read through Ernest … Read More Miss Jane Pittman and the Temptation of Christ