"Pudd'nhead Wilson"

For this blog post, I want to comment on the discussion we had in class today about Pudd'nhead Wilson and the many topics that Twain brings up within the book, as I find them all very interesting. I will only focus on one or two, however, since there were so many and I only have so much energy.


A large overarching theme in this novel is "Nature vs. Nurture." Roxy's real son is raised a gentleman and turns out to be pretty rotten, which isn't the case for her adopted son, who is raised with the humility and subordination of a slave. I think that Twain is commenting on Nature vs. Nurture here in a way that doesn't really put him on either side of the debate definitively. Tom's bad temperament could be his spoiled upbringing, or his "one drop" of ethnic blood. Chambers' strength and good temperament could either be attributed to his humble slave upbringing or to his inherent whiteness. From the way I and many other readers perceive it, the boys' upbringing heavily influenced their personalities, but as someone brought up in class, the twins have been together for their whole life and have differing personalities. Twain is commenting on Nature vs. Nurture in a way that does not put him on either side of the fence definitively.


The "One Drop" rule is also fascinating in its logic (or lack there of). The idea that one drop of African blood can make a person undeniably black while many, many drops of white blood do not automatically classify a person as white is silly. It doesn't surprise me, however, that that is the way in which society viewed it at the time, because we still hold onto that idea today. One example is the way in which our president is viewed by the public. He is just as white as he is black, if not more, but no one refers to him as white, sees him as white, or describes him as half black or half white. Biracial and multiracial children and adults often have difficulties "fitting in" for this very reason. Chambers is unable to fit into the white, wealthy crowd because of his cultural differences and the dialect that he speaks, and once Tom finds out his true identity, he is unable to see himself as completely white after that. They are both stuck in an awkward cultural and social limbo that many people of multiple ethnicities find themselves in today.

Portrayal of Native Americans in the 1800s

Many types of literature and propaganda surrounding the topic of Native American culture from the 1800's is very disturbing and filed with blatant racism, and like our last post about orientalist, this propaganda serves as another example of othering and western domination.

Much of the art and literature produced on the 1800s with the subject of Native Americans portrayed the native people as savage or as animals rather than people. This idea can be seen in The Death of Jane McCrea (1804) posted below. This painting depicts two muscular Native American Men in the process or murdering a white woman. The men appear to be in complete control of the woman, and the woman is depicted as helpless. The woman in the picture has the expression of helplessness and fear and one of her breasts has fallen out of her dress to further the idea of helplessness. On the other hand the men in the painting have very wide eyes and furrowed brows showing anger or a lack of compassion and serve to further emphasize ideas of uncivilized behavior on the parts of the men.

Similar to this piece of art, there was a specific genre of literature dedicated to the “cruelty” and “horror” that was Native American culture. These novels were called Apache novels such as Apache Ransom and Apache Hostage. These kind of narratives generally followed the plot of having a white (civilized) person stolen out of their society by Native Americans. The Native Americans in these novels are often portrayed as eating raw food and lacking emotion.

While the majority of Native American literature in the 1800s debased and negatively portrayed Native Americans, some people did attempt to use literature as a way to bring social justice to the plight of Native Americans.  Unfortunately, this literature was not very popular nor was it considered to be very controversial. An example of this literature is Helen Hunt Jackson’s A Century of Dishonor. The novel was clearly a critique of the way that the US dealt with the colonization of the US land and their treatment of Native Americans and highlights the atrocities of colonization. However, some theorize that because people in this time period were so used to viewing Native Americans as less than human, the book did not even read as a controversial issue because the readers weren’t able to relate to the Native American story at all.

In order to get the attention of readers at the time Helen Hunt Jackson ended up writing a novel called Romona in 1855 using many of the same details used in A Century of Dishonor, but formatted it as a romance novel, which were much more popular.

I would argue (probably mostly unopposed) that this anti native propaganda served to allow for easier western domination. I wish that we could be a society that aligns more closely to Helen Hunt Jackson in taking a stand agains social injustices. It is extremely unfortunate that the people of the time were unable to see past the artificial idea that Native people were less civilized than US citizens, and to connect these ideas to today's society, I would also argue that in many ways we as a society still uphold many of these stereotypes. One example is that I heard a person just yesterday say that Asian people can't help but drive poorly, and only earlier today I was told that it's okay that I didn't understand something because I was a woman. While these issues may be occurring on a much smaller scale than the oppression of Native American cultures, I believe that it is still very important that we self reflect and hold one another accountable to avoid othering people who belong to cultures that do not reflect our own ideas.

http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/ximages/amerinds/CaptNarr/DeathJaneMcCreaVanderlyn1804.jpg

Citations:
Cotton, Lacy N. "American Indian Stereotypes in Early Western Literature and the Lasting Influence on American Culture." Baylor Beardocs. Baylor University, n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.

Orientalism, Said, and Modern Forms of "Othering"

The first thing I noticed about Said's claims about Orientalism was that the three things that he means by Orientalism are interdependent. This rightfully frames Orientalism as a system of beliefs and actions that work together to produce and reproduce the idea that there are inherent differences and hierarchies among the many peoples of the world. The fact that theorists and other thinkers have accepted the East/West dichotomy as a beginning for theories, literature, social commentary, and political commentary, shows that there is an urge to enforce and a reason to accept "otherness" as truth. This brings me to the idea of paths of least resistance; if there is a system that is already in place, and there are penalties for defying that system, people will choose the path of least resistance and maintain the system by doing so. Said also states that Orientalism in itself was a pathway to Western domination. Thinking of peoples from a different part of the world as "other" serves to dehumanize and makes it easier to take control over that region. Said goes on to say that the Orient, because of Orientalism, is "less a place than a topos." It is so misrepresented and construed that it has lost its real meaning to many people. The concluding idea to this particular section was that Orientalism served to present the Orient as purely "other" in every way.


It is interesting to take these ideas and apply them to the world in which we live today. Many people still see all or parts of the East and Middle East as some sort of fictional land where nothing really happens. Many people would refer to people of Asian descent as "exotic," contrary to what the numbers say. More than half of the earth's population lives in Asia, but many Americans are under the impression that they are inherently "exotic" simply because they don't all live here. Another aspect of our world in 2015 that reflects the history and perpetuation of Orientalism and Imperialism is the attitude, specifically in the United States, of nationalism that excludes those who have immigrated here or even those who look "different." The colonizers who first came here did not "belong" here, nor did they treat the indigenous with respect. Ironically, the descendants of those colonizers are fuming about the entrance of Mexican immigrants, and the presence of African Americans, whose ancestors we brought here ourselves. The content of the readings that we did about Orientalism is all very applicable today, and I believe that's the most important thing to take away from those excerpts.