The True Place of Writing is Reading- Roland Barthes

A quote to empower you, as a reader. Please keep this quote in mind while reading Eliot’s Waste Land, especially in those moments of frustration!

“A text is made of multiple writings, drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual relations to dialogue, parody, contestation, but there is one place where this multiplicity is focused and that place is the reader, not, as was hitherto said, the author. The reader is the space on which all the quotations that make up a writing are inscribed without any of them being lost; a text’s unity lies not in its origin but in its destination.” – Roland Barthes, from “The Death of the Author”

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The Waste Land

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

Some biographical Notes:

• Harvard education- wealthy family from New England- born in St. Louis Missouri
• Wrote dissertation but did not defend it- a critique of the psychology of consciousness
• Held job at Lloyd’s bank in London
• Was an Anglican
• Ex-patriot- gave up his “American-ness”
• Met Ezra Pound in Paris
• Unhappy marriage to Vivien Haigh-Wood- didn’t believe in divorce- she died in 1947 and he remarried Valerie Fletcher in 1957
• He died of emphysema- was a heavy smoker
• Had a mental breakdown (had several) – went to rest house in Switzerland in 1921 and finished the Waste Land there (which he started in 1919)
• Two major stylistic methods- (1) Robert Browning- look at one character and exploring his or her twisted psyche; (2) more classical dramatic style ala Dante and Shakespeare
•  Heavily influenced by Dante and French Symbolist Poets (i.e. Baudelaire)

 

Discussion Questions for T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”

We will be covering “The Waste Land” during our discussion this upcoming week. You will find questions below that may assist you in navigating through some of the poem’s complexities. We will attempt to cover many of these questions during section. Feel free to bring in responses you may have to any of these questions (or to other issues you locate in the text).

Some Waste Land Reminders: This is one of the most important poems of the 20th century. We will speak of it EXTENSIVELY in discussion! It is also one of the most difficult poems. Please keep certain things in mind while you are reading it: (1) pay close attention to the first line, “April is the cruellest month”- April is often the least cruel month, why is he beginning the poem in such a way. (2) when reading this poem we must be hyper-aware of its historical backdrop- WWI– Eliot published the poem in 1922, but it was written both during WWI and during its traumatic aftermath. (3) look at each section carefully and think about the titles of each section- what do the titles suggest? (4) this is an antipastoral poem, compare it to the “Spring and All” by Williams we read last week… how do they compare? (5) think about the interactions between men and women that Eliot depicts and try to reflect a little on how those interactions are played out (especially seen in “The Game of Chess”), (6) think about how this poem is both similar to and different from Pound’s Cantos… what does Eliot adopt from Pound and what does he abandon? (6) This poem is FILLED with allusions… what do these allusions do for your reading process? How do they serve as a supplementary text and why do you think Eliot used so many of them?

1. A.     The Burial of the Dead

(1) How does the section The Burial of the Dead actually exhibit life?

(2) How are the city and its inhabitants portrayed? Remeber the city in modernist writing is extremely important, taking on a life of its own….

 (3) Excerpt to consider—Lines 60-76:

 Unreal City,  60

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, 

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, 

I had not thought death had undone so many. 

Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, 

And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.  65

 Flowed up the hill and down King William Street, 

To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours 

With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine. 

There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: “Stetson! 

You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!  70

That corpse you planted last year in your garden, 

Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? 

Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed? 

O keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men, 

Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!  75

You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”

 B.      A Game of Chess

1.      What is the symbolic value of chess in this poem?

2.      Are the woman in the chair (line 76) and the woman named Lil (line 139) the same character? What is the significance of the two dialogues in this section?

3.      Excerpts to consider—Lines 111-136 & Lines 145-155:

 “My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me. 

Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak. 

     What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? 

I never know what you are thinking. Think.” 

 I think we are in rats’ alley 115

 Where the dead men lost their bones.   

“What is that noise?”

                        The wind under the door. 

“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”

                       Nothing again nothing. 120

                                                                                        “Do

“’You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember 

 Nothing?”

 I remember

  Those are pearls that were his eyes. 125

“’Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”

                                                                                But 

O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—

 It’s so elegant 

So intelligent 130

“’What shall I do now? What shall I do?”

“’I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street 

 ‘With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow? 

‘What shall we ever do?”

***

You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set, 145

He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you. 

And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,

He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,

And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.

Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said. 150

Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.

HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME

If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said.

Others can pick and choose if you can’t.

But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling. 155

C.      The Fire Sermon

1.      What traces of war and destruction do you find in section 3?

2.      What function does Tiresias, the blind prophet of dual gender, serve in the poem (line 218)?

3.      Excerpt to consider—Lines 218-230 :

I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,

Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see

At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives 220 

Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,

The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights

Her stove, and lays out food in tins.

Out of the window perilously spread

Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays, 225 

 On the divan are piled (at night her bed)

Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays. 

I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs

Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—

I too awaited the expected guest. 230

D.     Death by Water

1.      Why does Eliot transition from fire to water?

2.      What does the narrator warn the reader against?

3.      Excerpt to consider—Lines 319-321:

                          Gentile or Jew 

O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, 320 

Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

E.  What the Thunder Said

1.     Does Eliot leave room for hope by the end of the poem? If so, what lines depict that?

2.      Excerpt to consider—Lines 412-418:

Dayadhvam: I have heard the key

 Turn in the door once and turn once only

We think of the key, each in his prison

Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison415

Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours  

Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus

D A

 

 Excerpts extracted from T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” in the 8^th edition of The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Twentieth Century and After

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William Carlos Williams: “Stilled” Poetry

Some biographical notes:

He was born in 1883 in New Jersey to a Puerto  Rican mother and a British father. He grew up speaking Spanish in his home, and his bilingual education helped garner a heightened sense of cultural understanding. He went to medical school and became a pediatrician/general physician. He married Florence Herman in 1912 and remained in New Jersey, while often traveling to New York City to meet with the booming artistic community developing there. He was a friend an admirer of Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, but he sought to counter their status as expatriates with his own status a devout American. As a doctor he was able to come into contact with many immigrant and poor/middle class families. These encounters are transmitted throughout his poems as he lends his focus to everyday encounters, common language, and the common experience of individuals living in modern America. Desiring to create truly “American” poems, Williams moved away from the European tradition, turning to the American landscape (of people and things) for his inspiration.  His poems read like photographs, focusing on the immediate visual experience of the reader, often using objects to create the poetic scene. He was a fan of Marcel Duchamp, and I think that Duchamp’s work had a great influence on his poetry. Check this out if you want to see some of Duchamp’s pieces: http://www.understandingduchamp.com/

“The Red Wheelbarrow” (1923)

This is an example of what many have termed ” a still-life poem.” Like a painting, the poem presents a portrait, and image of one scene. As soon as the word “red” appears, the canvas gains color, and, toward the end, as the word “white” appears, another color finds its way onto the canvas in order to contrast with the “red.” Read this poem as if you are looking at a painting, and notice how the word “glazed” serves to create a sense of newness, a sense of “freshness” as if the painting has just been finished by the artist and is waiting to dry. The word glazed reinforces the image of “rain water,” and thus the word itself becomes an image. Each word in this poem serves as its own image, and as the words compile together, a linguistic collage develops…

Questions: This is an Imagist poem, how does it differ from Pound’s? What do the first two lines, ” so much depends/upon” mean? Why do you think nothing is capitalized? Also, why do you think the poet includes a period at the end, something which we don’t really expect? This poem is more about what the poet DOES, how he uses language, rather than about what the poem itself SAYS… why do you think that is?

“The Great Figure” (1921)

The poem begins “Among the rain/and lights” of the city. This is an urban setting, a direct contrast to the rural setting of “The Red Wheelbarrow.” The poem, once more, focuses in on two colors, gold and red, but it moves to focus in on sounds alongside the images. Sound becomes central to our reading. This poem expresses chaos, the frenzy of a the modern American city, a city which is constantly moving, speeding along the roads.

Questions: What do you think that the “figure 5/in gold” is trying to represent? How is this poem different from “The Red Wheelbarrow”? Is it a “still -life” or does it have more motion? All of his poems are very rhythmical, what does the rhythm do when you are reading the poem? What does rhythm enable?

Look at any of the poems we are reading by Williams. Choose any one and do a close reading. Ask yourself: what is this poem doing? How does the poet use language to convey images? How do the poems differ from one another? What settings do the poems take under their wing? How do these poems fit into the Modernist era…what modernist themes are being employed? Look at his use of the dash and other punctuation marks. For example, in “Spring and All,” no period ends the poem, why do you think that is?

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Gertrude Stein: Grammar-Poetry

(1874- 1946)  

Some things to keep in mind about Stein and The Making of Americans:  

She and her brother started an art gallery while they were living in Paris. Renoir, Matisse, Cezanne, and Picasso, were among her favorite artists, and we notice traces of her artistic sensibilities throughout her writing.   

– She was born to German and Jewish immigrants, so keep that in mind while reading the excerpt from “The Making of Americans.” What does it mean to be ” a real American,” or a real Chinese, a real Cuban? Remember the notion of the “melting pot,” America as a land of immigrants: “the old people in a new world, the new people made out of the old, that is the story I mean to tell, for that is what really is and what I really know” (1147, Heath Anthology). Take a moment to REALLY look at that line. Stein PACKS each line with hidden meanings and nuances. 

Our ancestors are traveling with us constantly, the dead travel with the living, and the living carry on the traits and stories of the dead. Look at the pattern of the words: Old people/ New world, New people/ Old. The new people literally TAKE OVER the old people in that sentence, and although Stein moves away from symbolic language, her simple linguistic constructions take the place of metaphor and simile, creating a new kind of symbolism. Thus, for Stein, the sentence is a kind of historical space. That’s how careful Stein is, and that’s why each sentence contains its own unique meaning, creating the historical patchwork of the three generations her book deals with. Stein wants to tell us a story, to create a record of generations, showing how language,  the primal means of communication, contains its own history. 

– She moves away from symbolic language, and creates a kind of “grammatical poetics,” as Prof. Huang mentioned. Remember that Stein is fond of (1) pronouns, and (2) words ending in -ing. She writes both poetry and prose, yet her prose seems to read like poetry due to its musicality. What do you think about her move away from symbolic language? Is metaphor necessary in literature, especially in poetry? Or do you think that Stein’s simplicity serves to offer the reader more of the “real truth”? Do you think her writing is “more natural” than say Pound’s? Or Frost’s? 

– Stein uses repetition as a way to overly emphasize certain words and phrases, but also as a way to ensure that her readers never forget! For example: “Family living can go on existing. Very many are remembering this thing are remembering that family living living can go on existing. Very many are quite certain that family living can go on existing. Very many are remembering that they are quite certain that family living can go on existing.” (1148) 

 I know the sentences all tend to look the same after a while, and to engage in a  close reading of the whole excerpt would be rather tedious, however, by just picking out a few lines we witness how carefully Stein uses language to reveal differences and progressions. Who are the “very many”? Is there more than one subject here? The important thing to focus on here is this notion of “remembering,” ask yourselves what memory means for Stein…how does this excerpt force you, as a reader, to remember? These patterns of repeated speech help express, or unveil,  character-  it is language, after all, that creates character in any literary text. How does Stein’s use of repetition help create character? What does repetition do to the stability of that character or characters? Why do you think she refuses to use nouns? 

-She was an expatriate, living in Paris for most of her life, and therefore had the privilege of ‘being outside and looking in,’ the privilege of the outsider-status. Prof. Huang spoke about this a little in class, reminding us that this “outsider status,” allowed her to view language in a completely different way- allowed her come face to face with the bare-nature of American English, translating that bareness onto the page. 

"A rose is a rose is a rose"

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The Cantos of Ezra Pound

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3IpkOZjyVw

It is impossible to even begin such a description. The best that we can do is make the attempt.

Let us turn to Canto 1…

Why Homer? Pound is writing the modern epic, mirroring Homer, using Homeric heros and backgrounds in order to situate the modern reader inside the world of the past.  He goes back inside the past in order to better understand the present condition of man. The poet seeks answers from the past, perhaps only the past can explain the  modern condition.

The basic plot-summary is that the narrator (our modern Odysseus) goes, with his crew, to the underworld. He goes in hopes of calling upon the dead so that he can consult them about the future. From the beginning of the Cantos, two worlds are presented- the world of the living and the world of the dead. This mirrors the poet’s task since he too moves between past traditions and present conditions.

Canto XLV

“Nothing written for pay is worth printing. Only what has been written against the market.” – Ezra Pound

Usury=a charge for the use of purchasing power, levied without regard to production; often without regard to the possibilities of production. Usury is, simply put, making money out of nothing.

For Pound this was the ultimate “evil,” if you will,  a sin against nature. Usury kills everything, especially art: “with usura/seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines/no picture is made to endure nor to live with” (11-12). Usury stunts development since it takes over all of production and contaminates the world through the illusion of greatness.

Questions/Thoughts: How can poetry be a “natural production”? Why would Pound’s Cantos be considered “more natural” than the work of other poets? For example, he does not translate anything, do you think that by leaving language in its “natural” state the poet is trying to preserve this organic nature he so devoutly believes in? In the Cantos he does not define anything for us, leaving all the names and places undefined, allowing them to “naturally” roam on the pages… what would Pound consider Usura in relation to art?

Please write out some thoughts or ideas you had when reading the Cantos… what is Pound trying to do overall in the ones that we have read? What about Canto CXX, which appears as a fragment, using very understandable language (for once)? Why do you think he included it in his overall creation? What does he want to be forgiven for?

Also, pick one of the Cantos we read for class and try to do a close reading of a few lines, try forming some summary about those lines to share with the class Tuesday. Come prepared with questions or concerns, the Cantos are INCREDIBLY difficult so do not get discouraged, try to at least come up with some themes with relate to Modernism.

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Parataxis

The best example of parataxis would be Caesar’s all-too famous quote, “veni, vidi, vici” or ” I came, I saw, I conquered.”  Parataxis literally means “placing side by side” without the help of connecting words such as “and.” Paratactic syntax is an interesting literary technique in that it sets up abrupt, forceful juxtapositions between images. Ezra Pound uses this syntax throughout his poetry in order to force his readers to make active connections between  seemingly disconnected poetic fragments.

Do you see instances of parataxis in the Cantos we have read?  Look, for example, at Canto LXXXI, lines 34-36 read as follow: “sky’s clear/night’s sea/ green of the mountain pool.” This  list-like structure is an example of parataxis… why do YOU think Pound used this syntactical method?

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Pragmatism

 

Someone asked a really good question in section yesterday and I thought I would take the time to address it here…

Pragmatism (according to Prof. Huang): Philosophical movement which holds that both the meaning and truth of any idea is a function of its practical outcome. The example given in class was about a man adrift in a hot air balloon. He then sees a man below him and the man in the balloon asks him “where am I?” The ground-based man responded with “well you seem to be in the air.” This is an example of what the pragmatists would call a “true but useless proposition.” The ideal pragmatist is someone that gives you the answer that is the most practical at any given moment. For example, the ground-based man should have said “you are in Holland,” and thus given the balloon-man a practical response based on his location, not based on the obvious.

If you guys have any other ways of defining this rather difficult philosophical concept, please feel free to post them!

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Ezra Pound: Image into Words

(1885-1972)

Brief Biography: Pound was born in Idaho, but he and his family moved to Pennsylvania when he was just a baby. He went to the University of Pennsylvania where he met William Carlos Williams and other poets who helped shape his poetic mindset. He moved to Europe in 1908, living first in Venice then settling in London. In London he began to study Japanese and Chinese, two languages which helped him develop “Imagism.”  After WWI, he moved to Paris and became friends with many writers and painters (especially the surrealist painters who had a large impact on his work). The effects of WWI are seen throughout his poetry, and throughout Modernist Poetry in general, especially when looking at certain themes that consistently reappeared in many Modernist works: alienation, destruction, death, emptiness, lack of communication, and  human materiality. After Paris, Pound relocated to Italy, and became an advocate for Mussolini. During WWII, Pound condemned US involvement, making several radio broadcasts which attacked the United States. After Mussolini’s regime fell, Pound was arrested and imprisoned in a wire cage for six months. He was then charged with treason by the United States but was found incompetent to stand trial and was thus sentenced to a rehabilitation center. He spent the rest of his life writing poetry and, on his release from the facility, he moved back to Italy where he died.

His biography is incredibly interesting and I have not done it justice here. I do however want to point out that Modernism (both in poetry and novels) often turned to the political. Many of Pound’s followers condemned his political undertaking, believing that poetry should exist outside the political realm… what do you think? Should literature aim to involve itself with politics, or should it remain outside?

What is Imagism?

It is a movement in poetry which many say Pound pioneered. Imagists use clear, sharp language to emphasize the image that a group of words create. Imagists, unlike their Romantic predecessors, are minimalists who use a “bare-minimum-language” to create their poems. They reject sentiment and pompous phrases, turning to pure language, unadulterated by adjectives and verbs.

“In a Station of the Metro” (1916)  is a perfect example of the Imagist construction. In 14 words, the poet is able to create and maintain an image. Much like a Cubist painting, this poem serves to FUSE together two images: the “faces in the crowd” and the “petals on a wet, black bough.” Like Cubism, Imagism fuses together images using language instead of color. The poem contains no verb, no action, it is simply an impression which is transmitted from the poet’s imagination to the page.

The semi-colon has had scholars in a frenzy! What does the semi-colon do for the rest of the poem? Does it equate the faces with the bough?

Reading this poem is like watching a scene from a movie, many have said. Why do you think that is? Why has film become so important for Pound at this point in time?

What are some of the themes of Modernism?

Pound was a Modernist, as was Lowell and many of the poets we will read for this class. Though many argue about when the Modernist movement started, it is safe to say that it was well underway during the early 1900’s. Modernists turned away from their Victorian and Romantic predecessors seeking to reposition the individual inside a no-longer-recognizable society. The modernist movement is marked by alienation and modernist writers struggled to use language in order to describe the human condition in the ever-evolving modern world.

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Robert Frost: Looking at Nature in the Modern World

1874-1963

Some notes on theme and style: Frost often uses complex philosophical themes through his poetry. The three poem we read for the class are incredibly short, yet each line contains larger philosophic and social claims. Prof. Huang spent some time going over “The Road Not Taken,” reminding us that the poem is a lament for what could have been. Frost generally resorts to natural themes, moving from the city to the forest. Frost is writing during the early decades of the 20th century, a century marked by capitalism’s modernizing forces. Film was developing, photography and photo journalism were established as means of media communication, WWI (1914-1918) and WWII (1939-1945) ravished the global economy and mindset. Frost is writing in the midst of chaos and progress, trying to create a sense balance through poetry, a “momentary stay against confusion.” The poet is the one who is able to make life stop for a moment, a simple moment in which the reader can reflect upon his or her own existence. This is what Frost strives for in his poetry.

Questions on the Poetry:

Let’s look at “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Aside from the things mentioned in lecture with regard to “the clearing,” what else does the poem attempt to do? What is the poet striving to show in this poem? What is, in effect, the poem ABOUT?  What is personified in the poem and why? Modernist Poetry often does not have a rhyme scheme, why does Frost resort to rhyme in his poems? What does RHYME do for us as readers of poetry? What is the ‘world of the woods’ juxtaposed against and what do the woods represent in the first place?

In the poems that we have read the poetic narrator is always alone (or with an animal). No other human beings are around… why is that? If you could characterize Frost’s poetry using two or three themes, what would they be?

He always seems to create two worlds throughout his poetry: the world of nature and the world of society. The poet acts as an in-between figure who can travel between both worlds.  What other “opposite realms” does Frost create? What do the last lines do for you, as a reader? Are they echoes of death or of the long journey the traveler still faces?

In reading “Once by the Pacific,” a lesser known Frost poem, what did you make of the language of man and the language of God (another example of the “two worlds” that Frost keeps creating)? Notice that the lines of the poem (pictorially on the page) seem to mimic the motion of ocean waves, moving in and out, each line a little longer then the previous one, until the tide retracts. This is how careful Frost is in his writing, each line, each word, is perfectly crafted.

Ending Questions: What are some words that reappear throughout these three poems? What do those reappearing words serve to show us about Frost’s overall poetic inclination? Why do you think “I” is mentioned five times in “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” ? Give some of your own interpretations of these poems… how do you characterize them?

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W.E.B. Du Bois

 (1868- 1963)

Some Biographical/Historical  Notes:  He was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts soon after the constitutional amendment which abolished slavery. His father left before he was born and he was raised mainly by his mother. Though he was born free, he still experienced racial discrimination throughout his life, most memorably during his school years. It is these experiences which we see at play in “The Souls of Black Folk,” especially with regard to his notion of “double consciousness.” He attended Fisk College in Nashville for some years and then went on to Harvard for graduate school to study history and to Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. He began his teaching career shortly after, teaching classics at Wilberforce College and then moving to the University of Pennsylvania. In Philadelphia he began a study which he called “The Philadelphia Negro,” a study which argued that racism kept African American communities from flourishing to their full potential, existing as THE source for many social problems (such as unemployment and crime) troubling African American communities. He then moved to Atlanta University to teach, remaining there for thirteen years, until 1910. He began writing many essays, becoming, alongside Booker T. Washington (whom Du Bois heavily critiqued), one of the leading spokesmen for African American communities. Du Bois had more radical ideas than Washington with respect to the movement toward equality for African Americans, believing that African Americans needed to actively protest for their rights. After the lynching of a man named Sam Hose in 1899, Du Bois became involved in something called the “Niagara Movement,” which contained educated African Americans who helped spread the message of political and social equality. Later he became the director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. He emigrated to Ghana, a kind of self-imposed exile after some controversies which tainted his career and image in the States, in 1961, renouncing his American citizenship. He died there in 1963.

Some Thoughts/Questions on the Reading Excerpt:

On Art: Du Bois believed that art was meant to raise social consciousness, bringing socio-political issues afflicting various communities into view. How do we see this belief enacted in the section entitled “Of the Sorrow Songs” which we read for the class? What does Du Bois say about language and music? How does music empower Du Bois?

On Education: For Du Bois, education existed as one way to overcome “double consciousness” since it allowed the African American man or woman to gain his or her own perspective, a perspective which served to empower the individual. Prof. Huang mentioned the “talented tenth,” or the elite race of African Americans who, according to Du Bois, would “save the race.” What do you think about this formulation? How important is education in propelling social mobility?

What is double consciousness ?

Du Bois tell us that it is “always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others.” How can we avoid double consciousness? How would you define it?

The first section of “The Souls of Black Folk”  begins with a memory of racial discrimination, showing how the past, and memories of that past, are closely intertwined with the present consciousness. When the tall girl refuses his card, he is suddenly made aware of his difference, as if the girl’s presence unveiled the problem of his race. What role does memory play for Du Bois?

 He says that the history of the American Negro is the history of double-consciousness, this strife of measuring oneself through the eyes of another and thus having a divided identity. This, he states, leads only to “sad havoc” and shame, preventing African Americans from coming to terms with their own identity and forcing them to conform to a socially accepted identity. What does he think that African Americans need to do in order to see themselves through their own eyes?

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