The Glass Bottle Trick: male stereotypes

Although in this class there is a lage focus on women and culture, I was suprised when I saw how the male, Samuel, was portrayed in the story. Stereotypically, women are the ones that are uneasy with their appearances. In this case, Samuel appears to be the person that stuggles the most with his identity. Samuel tells hsi wife Beatrice, "Yo don't have to draw attention to my color. I'm not a handsome man, and I know it. Black and ugly as my mother made me" (269). Then there is Beatrice the female that can find beauty in skin color, she thinks to herself, "She remembered him joking that no woman should have to give birth to his ugly black babies, but she would show him how beautiful their children would be, little brown bodies new as the earth after the rain. She would show him how to love himself in them" (267). This passage is interesting not only because it shows Samuel's insecurities (a female stereotype), but also that Beatrice is the one that feels she has to show Samuel to love himself. Again, stereotypically, women are the ones that have to be told that they have to learn to love themselves. Beatrice is portrayed as the confident character while Samuel's character is more feminine and and he is a much less confident individual which leads to very strange behaviors reavealed at the end of the story.

The Bottle Trick: Gender Expectations

   Beatrice falls into the norms of being a wife.  Once she marries her grades in college decline.  Her mother reinforces these norms by supporting her loss of interest in school because she has a man in her life.  Then she becomes pregnant.  Without consulting her husband she assumes that Samuel will be pleased with their child, "a baby would complete their family.  Samuel would be pleased, wouldn't he?" (267).  Her thoughts lead her to trouble however.  Samuel does not want to bring a baby of his color into the world.  As Beatrice learns, Samuel takes drastic steps to prevent a child of his to be born.

Dessa Rose: Females

Althouh the book heavily focuses on race, there are also issues on gender. The gender talked about in this novel does not discriminate based on race. Towards the end of the book, both Dessa and her Mistress start to realize they both have in common with each other because of their sex. There was the scene where the two women shared a room at Oscar's home while traveling. While there, Oscar tries to force himself upon the Mistress, showing Odessa that white women are subject to the same mistreat from men as she is and the rest of the female slaves (Williams).
I was glad to see that the novel touched on this issue on top of the obvious race issues that arose as well. It is true that through history women as a whole have been supressed due to the "power" of men. In this way both of the characters in the novel had something that they both could relate to without even realizing it. This could be saide even today. Now that slavery has been abolished, African American women and women of all other ethnicities in the United States, can say that they all have struggled for equal rights with men. Although this struggle was easier for white women, it was a struggle regardless, and a part of history that any woman can appreciate.

Dessa Rose: Gender

It had not occured to me until reading this novel about the realities of gender and slavery. I was aware from history classes and such that there were a lot of instances of sexual crimes against women slaves. I did not realize that similar incidents were also true for the males. I had not realized that it was not totally uncommon for women slave owners, or wifes of slave owners, to have sexual encounters with thier male slaves as the white males did with the women slaves. This also makes me wonder about other typed of sexual crimes that may have been commited on plantations.
Today it is not uncommon to hear of sexual crimes that are not commited by someone of the oppostie gender of the victim. Now a lot of crimes are carried out by people of the same gender as the victims. Dessa's encounter with the very cruel wife of her owner, further makes me question the roles of white women during this time in history. I wish that the book touched on this subject more than it did. Althoug, it did do a great job of bringing this mistreatment to my attention that I had not previously heard of.

Dessa Rose: Racial Interactions

   The content of the literature in the class has been narrowly focused on issues within races and the oppression they face from caucasians in the United States.  They books and selections seem to be isolated from caucasians.  Dessa Rose breaks the boundaries between a minority and caucasians in America.  The novel follows the life of Dessa and her many interactions of Southern Whites, learning about each other's culture even though they live in the same country and even on the same farm.  Dessa ends up defending and helping a white woman, Mr. Oscar's wife.  She fends a man off the white woman's bed with pillows and shoves him out the door.  They laugh together and have this moment of bonding.  Dessa laid awake most of the night, "I didn't know how to be warm with no white woman.  But now it was like we had a secret between us, not just that bad Oscar-though we kept that quiet" (Williams 153).

   In Breath, Eyes, and Memories, Bone, and other novels there is almost no interaction with caucasians giving the sense that they are a foreign race.  In The Antelope Wife,  there is an interaction between caucasians and Native Americans.  The book opens with the story of Scranton Roy and his unofficial adoption of a Native American baby.  He begins to adopt some of the philosophy, the philosophy which he originally attacked.  This is the parallel that exists between Dessa Rose and The Antelope Wife, both races begin to integrate and attempt to reverse the oppression minorities face.

Dessa Rose: Court

Dessa exemplifies the concept of constructed knowledge very clearly in explanation of the court.  "She had no idea what a "court" was; she had never been more than five miles from where she as born before being sold... She understood "court" as white folks for trying to figure out if everyone on the coffle had been caught" (36).  Her construction of court is the reflection of white people's idea in the south of a slave.  They don't believe slaves are equal to that of men and Nehemiah is talking with Dessa to figure out how to continuously condemn this group of people.  Nehemiah soon learns how smart Dessa can be, she strategically answers all questions to give no advances to the story Nehemiah is looking for.

The Antelope Wife: Reality

Windigo Dog visits Klaus in Chapter 12 but is very harsh to him.  It is expressed that the Klaus is only food for the dog.  He is not a human who judges, "Utter animal hunger that did not care whether you were sober or brave or had your hard-won GED certificate let alone a degree.  No matter.  Just food" (166 in large print book).  Although Windigo Dog was not there to judge Klaus he was only visiting for food.  He gives Klaus a sense of reality, begins licking Klaus until he cries hysterically.  At this point the dog breaths into his face and tells him a "dirty dog joke"(166).  Windigo Dog was punishing him for being drunk yet again.