Storage for Minji's Thoughts

As the story develops, it’s interesting to see and discuss the implications behind the changing dynamics between the characters, namely, Kevin and Dana. As Kevin has gotten more and more involved in the story, there seem to be increasing tensions between him and Dana. One example that we discussed in class was the scene where they watch the kids re-enacting a slave auction. While Dana was deeply disturbed and felt the need to do whatever she could do to change things, Kevin had a much more laid-back attitude. Just from this scene, it seems that Dana is much more involved in the slavery era than Kevin is. However, Kevin seems to be getting more involved in the slavery era as well, but instead of sympathizing with the slaves he seems to be getting more and more accustomed to the slave master’s racist way of thinking. One example would be when Kevin made the comment about Dana being a smart slave and how Weylin was right to be wary of smart slaves. As we discussed, Kevin didn’t mean thi...

In class today, we talked about rare beautiful moments within Slaughterhouse Five , amidst Vonnegut’s cynicism throughout most of the novel. Two scenes that were mentioned during discussion stood out to me. One of them was the scene where the couple shows Billy how injured the horses are and Billy starts crying. This is one of the only moments in the book where Billy shows real emotion and he doesn’t seem completely out of it. Although the scene is quite saddening, I would say that it is a beautiful scene because of the rare glimpse of the human in Billy that is portrayed through his sympathy for the horses in this scene. The other scene I found beautiful is the one where the innkeeper tells the soldiers to sleep well in German. The innkeeper is one of the only characters that has shown kindness throughout this whole novel, and because of it, this scene is filled with a feeling of warmth and hospitality that is nowhere to be found in the rest of the novel. Even when Billy is at his o...

An interesting topic of discussion surrounding Mumbo Jumbo is the significance of Reed’s divergence from typical detective novels. Though the structure can be seen as generally conventional, with Papa Labas serving as a detective and the text serving as the main mystery of the novel, there isn’t much else in Mumbo Jumbo that truly adheres to conventional detective fiction. I personally think that Reed was just as intentional in diverging from the genre of detective fiction as it is accepted in Western culture as he was in diverging from Eurocentric culture within the actual content of his novel. One way that Reed defies the structure of a detective novel is that the detective in his story, Papa Labas, does not use pure evidence and reason throughout his journey. Papa Labas definitely relies on religion throughout the whole novel. Additionally, when he reaches the end of his quest and finally catches HVV and Hubert Safecracker Gould, he doesn’t use concrete evidence to arrest th...

            Last week, we discussed the ending of Ragtime , and the general consensus was that it was a happy ending. Though it does seem to end happily for the newly-formed family, the endings for some of the other characters that we didn’t have time to discuss in detail, don’t necessarily achieve the happily-ever-after ending that Mother, Tateh, and their children get. It also seems that many of the characters that don’t end up very well are also the characters that wield the most power/privilege amongst the characters in the book.             One character we didn’t discuss in much detail at the end of the book was Morgan. The last scene of Morgan is him in Egypt, not being able to experience the revelation he was searching for throughout the book. Though Morgan is unbelievably wealthy, he doesn’t seem to be nearly as content with his life as the newly-formed family does by the end of the book....

During discussion in class this week, we talked about the different reactions that the characters had to Coalhouse Walker. Father seems to act the most negatively, out of the family members, towards Coalhouse Walker. Though some of his reactions aren’t purposefully rude, he is definitely put off by Walker’s unusually proud attitude and there are a few moments when Father seems to almost want Walker to rely on him, though Walker refuses. One example of this is when Father pays Walker’s bail, not expecting him to pay it back, but rather seemingly wanting some kind of gesture of appreciation. Instead, Walker pays back the full amount using the money he had saved up for the wedding and leaves without saying much. Mother’s reaction seemed to come from her feeling of responsibility towards Sarah and her child. Though she told Coalhouse to step away from the baby, she doesn’t seem to have fully understood the situation at that point, and it’s also a pretty understandable reaction to a r...

During discussion in class today, Mr. Mitchell asked the question, “What is Gunnar so mad about?” regarding Gunnar’s drastic decision to (eventually) commit suicide by waiting for the atomic bomb to hit Hillside. This question made me reflect on the book as a whole, and it became clear that one of the biggest factors in Gunnar’s decision was the mentally detrimental effects of white people imposing identities on him throughout his whole life. From the beginning of the novel, Gunnar is framed as the “funny cool black guy”. Although he likes being this person, it’s also an identity that the kids (at his primarily white high school) gave him. In high school, Gunnar is framed as the basketball prodigy, and in college, he’s idolized as a genius poet. Most of these identities seem positive— and even things that other people strive for, which makes it difficult to understand why it’s a problem. However, Gunnar seems to have a big issue with it. He continuously fights back against these ...