Category: american literature

+

What Does the Cover Say? (Part 2)

Last post, I wrote briefly about three of the covers from Ernest J. Gaines’s Of Love and Dust (1967). Today, I want to continue the discussion by looking at the 1994 Vintage Books edition and two 1991 covers from French translations. Examined in relation to the covers discussed in the previous post, these images provide readers with three more introductions to OLAD before they … Read More What Does the Cover Say? (Part 2)

+

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?

+

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”

+

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”

+

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