Sunday, May 25, 2008

Problematic?

Were there any relationships in the book that you found too improbable?

(I have at least one in mind, but I don't want to rant about it until you weigh in.)
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6 comments:

Erin said...

Well, I don't know which one you have in mind, but I had some trouble with the Moses-Caldonia situation.

3:31 PM, May 27, 2008
kc said...

Yeah, that's the one I had in mind. I didn't buy that at all. The author went to a lot of trouble to show that Caldonia is a certain kind of "well-bred" woman and then we are supposed to believe that she'd get a great big charge out of sitting on some field hand's lap. She just didn't seem like the sort who'd enjoy slumming with the servants. I guess we were supposed to imagine that she was desperately lonely, but it just didn't add up for me.

I guess there's also sort of an interesting counterpart with the male slave owners. They slept with their property and no one thought a thing about it. But if a woman slaveholder did the same, there was something really "wrong" with that — something that would be punished. It also offered some insight into Moses' personality that once he started sleeping with her he thought she owed him the world and that he, as the man, would naturally, eventually be in charge of her and all her property. He couldn't accept, like countless slave women had accepted for centuries, that he would just be a sexual plaything for her.

I detected a bit of sexism in the author's apparent perspective that women, even if they are terribly smart and cultivated, really just want a strong man to take them in hand, even if he's illiterate and not very sympathetic, or is a rascally, irresponsible gambling type with a fetish for unwashed women.

Really, I wondered whether the author himself had that kind of fetish because there's also a scene where Calvin wants to lick Louis' salty, sweaty flesh. I mean, I'm not passing judgment, but if you're going to have scenes like that they should make sense with the characters and not seem like some gratuitous overlay.

8:12 PM, May 27, 2008
Erin said...

I didn't buy it either. There was nothing previous in the story to make us believe Caldonia would have any interest in a dalliance with a field slave.

God, that's kind of funny about the salt licking. I hadn't noticed that.

Nice connection with Fern and her relationships with men. I was going to bring up Fern at some point. That was another case where I'm not sure I got the point. She was supposed to be so educated and refined, but she's married to a no-account funk-loving gambler. And then she becomes fixated on Jebediah Dickinson, another transient gambler. Something doesn't fit. Is this another example of Jones trying to establish the "good" and "bad" side of everyone? That's all well and good, but you shouldn't sacrifice character consistency.

9:41 PM, May 27, 2008
kc said...

You said funk-loving. God bless you.

Hehe

2:23 AM, May 28, 2008
kc said...

Do you think there was some issue with suitable partners being available for these refined black women? And, if so, why didn't the author make more of that? There seemed to be a notion that it was sort of quaint for a black woman to be educated and well-spoken and refined, but that there would be something more threatening about a black man being really learned, like education in a man would lead not so much to nice manners and correct grammar as to social rebellion. So maybe Fern and her ilk didn't really have male counterparts that would make for suitable mates(?)

When Robbins wanted Fern to educate Henry, the purpose was not to make him a better human being by virtue of a liberal education but, really, to make him a better businessman and more capable of navigating the white world.

2:06 PM, May 29, 2008
Erin said...

I think you may be right about the lack of educated male partners. A well-educated black man would certainly be seen as a greater threat than a similarly educated woman.

8:51 AM, May 30, 2008

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