When we move on to the second of these stories selected by David Haynes, we encounter a younger speaker, a child with a world view not yet tainted by realities outside her own, or, perhaps more accurately, a world view tainted by her ignorance of realities outside her own. Is this too a vision of Bambara? This girl too is stubborn and principled, though not so firmly rooted, still taking shape before the kiln-burn.
Bambara, I think, is both of these characters, and she is neither. She has fooled us, and I for one have never been so delighted to be fooled. Bambara has masterfully crafted first person narrators in authentic vernacular and circumstance. She has drenched us in the churning waters of a world outside our own, and by doing so has allowed us into that world. These vivid glimpses become an invitation. Read on, read on!
“The Organizer’s Wife” for me demanded multiple reads. The third-person narrative here gives the feeling of distance, but our view of Virginia is as clear and distinct as either of the other two stories' narrators. We see a woman between the girl and the old woman, both in age and philosophy. We watch her struggle in this place, and then, in perhaps the most captivating scene of the story, we see Virginia see herself: "She saw the scene detached, poster figures animated: a hefty woman pursuing a scrambling man..." Bamabara shows us Virginia's transformation as Virginia herself sees it.
These stories show the range of a life, of many lives—the range and scope of a writer worth admiring.
Toni Cade Bambara is a master of voice and the transition of oral stories to the written page. In all three stories, I got lost in the vivid use of language and spelling. I could hear the author speaking these stories to me. The characters popped out of the page to interact with one another. I got to know what the characters were always thinking. In “My Man Bovanne,” we get to understand what all characters are thinking based on the simple actions the characters do. From the looks they give one another, to how they dance, and how they speak, each character gives away what they are thinking. In “The Lesson,” we get to read about a protagonist on the opposite end of the age range from Miss Hazel. This narrator has a whole new voice that gives a whole new kind of perspective from a young child not yet understanding all that she has to learn. Vivid, interesting names such as “Flyboy,” “Junebug,” and “Sugar” float off the page to show the reader how different this character’s world is from his or her own. These children make the story and create the world they live in, in a way that jumps right off the page through actions, such as the children pushing and nagging on each other. This show of emotions through vivid actions is also seen in “The Organizer’s Wife.” The scene where Virginia beats up the “Revun Michaels” really shows the rough and tough woman she is. She seems to be the strongest fighter for the land, fully believes that no one is allowed to take it. They have all been living off that land. It is theirs. Although she is very aggressive, the reader also gets to see her calm side as she fondles her baby. I really enjoyed reading these pieces and being able to hear the emotion sprouting from the page.
ReplyDeleteToni Cade Bambrara is a genuine writer, in the sense that what she writes is very real. For instance, while none of these stories are nonfiction, they feel quite realistic. Perhaps I am just saying this because she is writing from a much different perspective than my own, but it felt like Bambrara is writing from some personal experience. Granted, it is equally possible that she is simply a skillful creator with an excellent imagination. While I don’t doubt the latter, I am almost certain of the first. Who could write paint such a portrait of a woman as Miss Hazel in “My Man Bovanne” without some essence of experience included? Really, in this particular story, it’s the style that really ensures me of this. It is a very much natural style, in that is not formal in the least. Rather it is written from the perspective of the narrator’s own personal experience. She would not be a writer, so why she tell a story like some English major? She wouldn’t. And that’s really why “My Man Bovanne” works for me.
ReplyDelete“The Lesson” is perhaps the easiest of the three stories in this selection. It is in a way a lesson for all of us. The lesson is fairly simple: there needs to be a change within societal class structures. Ironically, the one who teaches the children this is the woman, Miss Moore, who seems to be somewhat more advantaged than the children. She has some money, certainly (though she is not rich or anything like that), since she can afford to take the children on a cab ride into Manhattan. And she doesn’t even ask for the change back from the narrator. Maybe that’s just because of her trusting nature, but I don’t think so. Miss Moore is educated, or so it seems. Perhaps Bambrara is making a point about the difficulties of attaining a proper education for children, such as those who take the field trip in this story. I could be wrong, though. Nonetheless, this story also rings quite true to me, just because it feels so honest.
Frankly, “The Organizer’s Wife” gave me a lot of difficulty. It seemed to go all over the place. However, I still got a sense of the culture. Unlike the other stories, this piece has a distinctively country feel to it. However, as in the other pieces, I could still believe the characters and their motives. Virginia is a desperate woman and it shows. She is a woman who is not to be trifled with and it shows. All in all, I get a sense that Toni Cade Bambrara wrote primarily from experience or from the experience of others whom she knew. She is a genuine writer, whom I can trust.
In his introduction, David Haynes writes that a theme in “My Man Bovanne” is “seeing oneself afresh.” Hazel sees herself in a new light by dancing with Bovanne, much to the dismay of her children. It’s as if Hazel and her children have switched the typical roles of parent/child: her children appear to be close-minded, wanting to follow what society claims to be “appropriate,” i.e. she should not be out dancing like she’s a young person, and Hazel is the one believing that she deserves to have a little fun, no matter what others think. She says, “And how did things get to this, that [Elo] can’t put a sure hand on me and say Mama we love you and care about you and you entitled to enjoy yourself cause you a good woman?” (105). I agree with David here that we might be getting a glimpse of Bambara herself through the character of Hazel—she is determined to follow her unique beliefs in the midst of a society that follows a different code.
ReplyDeleteBoth the main character in “The Lesson” and in “The Organizer’s Wife” share this “in between” quality of seeing and living in a world different from the one each has inside herself. For the narrator and children in “The Lesson,” they are floating between their sort of blue-collar roots and the sophisticated, lavish lifestyle of “people that spend that much for performing clowns and $1000 for toy sailboats” (111). Miss Moore is the outsider willing to go in, give them principles to abide by, slowly but surely inch them towards what it means to be privileged, even if they are fine right where they are. Virginia from “The Organizer’s Wife” is the third step that Bambara takes in countering societal norms, and interestingly she does this through third-person narration. Through the struggle for civil rights, Virginia has to push beyond the hatred from society and chase after what she believes in, asking “nuthin from nobody and [having] nobody offer up nuthin” (115). She knows that she is walking a thin line, with her child in her arms and her husband in jail, but like Bambara, she is counting on both her voice and her actions to inspire change.
Toni Cade Bambara had an amazing strength in the tone and personality in her characters and her narrator. I must admit to struggling through “My Man Bovanne” due to the language. Yet, what Catherine discussed in class (I can’t remember if she discussed it in Fiction or Short Story), stuck with me and I thought back to discussions of character and their actions. And even though I had a hard time with the language, the narrator in this piece kept me fascinated, and even in check. This lady did what she wanted, even if it meant dancing a little too close to the blind man. That same fascination carried over in “The Lesson”. The narrator was filled with attitude, as well as Sugar, and their annoyance with Miss Moore made me annoyed with Miss Moore as well. The most intriguing part about the narrator was the fact that she seemed to purposely make Miss Moore believe that she might be not as smart as she actually is. “And Miss Moore asking us do we know what money is, like we a bunch of retards.” I love the voices and how they make me feel about the rest of the story, and I feel as though Bambara has this idea down pat. “The Organizer’s Wife” was probably my least favorite of the three pieces, and that may or not be the fact that the tone seemed a little too distant for me, but then again, the details still make this piece easier to get involved in, it’s a delightful contrast between aspects of fiction. All in all, I enjoyed reading Toni Cade Bambara, who seems to have all of these great tools on her writing belt.
ReplyDeleteToni Cade Bambara has an absolutely incredible way with voice that completely captivated me. Out of the three pieces, the first two were by far my favorites, for the characters and voices used to translate the culture and identity of the characters. I found myself, in-between pieces, thinking my own thoughts in their voices (does anyone else do this or am I strange?), which was infinitely entertaining (also, I may end up writing a short short using a voice like this—who knows).
ReplyDeleteI feel that many people will read the first story as leading to Hazel and Bovanne “having at it”. I think it communicates something much deeper: A respect for the elderly; the concept of taking care of everyone in a community. In fact, I read her children much more as antagonists than anything. Besides not caring about taking care of the elderly (despite calling their community a “collective”) and misinterpreting their mother’s intentions (although we, too, misinterpret them—I was even surprised when she took Bovanne home and intended to bathe him rather than have sex with him), they also distance themselves from the culture. This is most evident in their use of language: the contrast between Hazel’s speech and her own children’s speech is hugely different, and I would even go as far as to say that Hazel’s children have become more “white” in the process of fighting for their race, being part of the Black Power movement. I saw this same sort of concept in “The Lesson” where we see this very “white” black woman—discriminated against by the children based on her education, which they relate to “whiteness”. At first, I was expecting this character, Miss Moore, to be an antagonist. In reality, this is not the case. She was, if anything, the only protagonist until Sugar understood the lesson by the end of the piece.
These pieces really stunned me. Like David says, the writing is incredibly inviting. It’s not often that I’m so pulled into a story that I find myself on the last page in a daze, disappointed that I read so quickly until I look at the clock and realize how long I’ve been glued to the pages. Toni Cade Bambara is definitely going on my reading list!
Toni Cade Bambara is certainly a diverse writer. The main characters in each of those three stories were so different from each other, but each one felt real and genuine. “My Man Bovanne” was the hardest one for me to understand, and I found myself re-reading some of the sentences in order to get what it was saying, but, at the same time, having the entire story in the vernacular of the narrator really kept me grounded in her head and just made me appreciate the story more. Through the language, I understood that this woman wasn’t about to let anyone, even her kids, tell her what to do. In “The Lesson” the main character couldn’t be more different. The language of the story is easier to understand and read and but that doesn’t detract from the character. The creative names given to the other kids helps to establish the same kind of depth in this much younger main character as with the other main characters. Her thoughts about Miss Moore and her annoyance with her, like Sydney said, also makes us, as the readers, annoyed with Miss Moore. “The Organizer’s Wife” was also a bit difficult for me to understand on the first read through. I couldn’t figure out exactly who was the main character at first, and this may have something to do with the fact that this story, unlike the others, was written in third person. Of the three it was my least favorite, though the language was still successful in making me empathize with the character and her situation.
ReplyDeleteReading Toni Cade Bambara’s work was quite the experience. I’ll admit, upon seeing the first story I was dreading the assignment, afraid that the stories would be a trek to get through because of the language. However, I ended up appreciating the first person style much more. I even missed it by the time the last story came around. The language just added something to the story that I wanted to see in “The Organizer’s Wife,” and that helped to aid in the clear characterization of the narrators in “My Man Bovanne” and “The Lesson.”
ReplyDelete“My Man Bovanne” was an interesting story about an older woman and her blind friend. She wants to do her part to help the elderly, but not necessarily the way the other townsfolk want. I was somewhat lost in the language, and didn’t completely understand what was going on plot wise, but I felt that Bambara did a fabulous job of showing us the characters. Elo’s snippy, Bovanne is a sweet old man, and the narrator isn’t afraid to be whoever she wants to be. She certainly has a lot of spunk for her old age.
This great characterization carried on into “The Lesson.” I could easily tell that these characters were children because of how they spoke, thought, and acted. It was rather juvenile, but believable and entertaining at times: how they were going to use the lipstick to talk to cute boys, or jump out of the taxi before their teacher’s stop. While I wondered what sort of teacher would try to give such a lesson to these sorts of children, I liked the whole toy store scene, with comments about stealing and much cheaper toys. It gave a great sense of the characters, and the world they lived in.
I felt like I missed a lot of that connection in “The Organizer’s Wife.” While I did get to know Virginia, felt for her and followed her story, the third person narrative separated me a little too much from her after being so used to being in the thoughts of the protagonists, dialect and all. I did enjoy the story, though not as much, perhaps because I couldn’t connect as well with the character both because of who she was and the third person narrative barrier.
The theme I found consistent in Toni Cade Bambara’s stories was the need for individuality and a search for the self. In “My Man Bovanne,” Hazel knows that what is important for her is not the “Black Power” movement her children are trying to push her into, but to live her own way and respect the values that are important to her (such as friendliness and gratitude to Bovanne) that the rest of the community seems to have forgotten. Sylvia in “The Lesson” wants to maintain her identity, as can be seen in how she resists Miss Moore’s teachings and is shocked when Sugar seems to be going along with the lesson being forced upon them. “The Organizer’s Wife” was a bit more difficult for me, as I felt more detached from it than the other stories (perhaps due to the switch to the third-person?), but I had a sense of Virginia seeking to distinguish herself as someone more than a housewife in a dying farming community, though her ultimate actions against Revun Michaels speak to me as trying to give the community as a whole an individual identity, as a place that won’t just roll over and die to being bought out.
ReplyDeleteI will admit, when I read these pieces (particularly “My Man Bovanne” and “The Lesson”), experiencing her use of voice was a bitter-sweet feeling for me. On the plus side, the way she incorporated the speech mannerisms, dialect, and grammar of the central characters in the narration makes the use of the first-person perspective more effective in terms of drawing me into the story as it reinforced the feeling of immersion, making the narrator truly and definitively sound as one with the character portrayed in the work. However, in order to maintain this voice, it seemed to me initially that Bambara would, out of necessity, spark my pet peeve regarding the use of certain colloquial speech in narration. I have had experiences in the past where protracted use of this style of voice made it difficult for me to read the story, and therefore limited my ability to become immersed in the piece (ironic, considering the above-mentioned benefit of this style). However, these pieces didn’t seem to cross that line for me, so though I can’t explain exactly how, Bambara must have found some balance where she created the strong voice to create immersion while not going too far with it (and even making me miss it somewhat in “The Organizer’s Wife”). A unique voice for stories about individuality.
Toni Cade Bambara named her writing style well, as “straight up fiction”. When I first saw that, I instantly wanted to get to the stories so that I could hopefully confirm that statement. I have read other writers’ work that could constitute as sharing that title, but after reading through the first paragraph of “My Man Bovanne” I saw that this was some of the purest sounding fiction I had ever read. It is the truest sounding voice-constructed narration and it never falters throughout any of the stories. In the first story, I admit, it took me a bit of time to work past some of the heavy dialect but that only drew me in more. Sometimes the sentences go on and on but I didn’t notice it at first because it sounded so conversational that I heard it in my head as if Miss Hazel was telling this story directly to me. When the actual dialogue came in, the transition from narrative was seamless because it was all that convincing that I was never taken out of story. With “The Lesson”, the language was more separated but still highly realistic in its presentation. To me, the difference in the dialects between the children and Miss Moore accented how far apart in experience they were from each other. Since it was told from the perspective from one of the children, the first time we hear Miss Moore speak it sounds as jarring to the tone of narration as it does to the children. It broke up the flow that had been established incredibly early in the story, but that is the entire point of her character.
ReplyDeleteBecause “The Organizer’s Wife” is told in third person, I took that as the reason for the dialect from the earlier stories to almost vanish in this story. In that respect, it was slightly less captivating at first for me. However, it kept my interest because of how broad some of the narration became. Like when Graham was describing the quilt, how it was made from so many different other materials that had a story connected to each one; it was great to see that much exposition subtlety hinted at.
Toni Cade Bambara seems to have switched the roles of the children and the parent in "My Man Bovanne," I thought that this was really interesting to see how the mother also gets a new impression from dancing from the blind man. I found the themes pretty constant in the three story and my favorite was most likely the first, however "The Lesson" although the themes were constant with in also had a tone that caught me off guard and made it very interesting to read. just the children wondering about prices and the schooled women talking to them about the world. I just thought it resembled something very unique that I've not experienced in my life.
ReplyDelete"The Orginizer's Wife" was told in the third person, but i saw that the language had changed and I wasn't sure how to take that this story didn't hold my interest at all unfortunately. The strong voice in the other piece was what it was lacking and even if i couldn't understand it was something that made Bambara's work unique.
Toni Cade Bambara seems to have switched the roles of the children and the parent in "My Man Bovanne," I thought that this was really interesting to see how the mother also gets a new impression from dancing from the blind man. I found the themes pretty constant in the three stories and my favorite was most likely the first. I also found that I was troubled by the dialog and I wasn’t having an easy time understanding what they were saying. I was interested by the way that another culture talks and how race and class maybe involved, but other than that I found it distracting. There was a lot of tension with in the is piece about the mothers sexuality and how a women her age should act. I found the fact that the children acted more black then the rest of the group in forms of dialog possibly because they had to fight the whites in their black power movement.
DeleteHowever "The Lesson" although the themes were constant within also had a tone that caught me off guard and made it very interesting to read. The children wondering about prices and the schooled women talking to them about the world. I just thought it resembled something very unique that I've not experienced in my life.
"The Orginizer's Wife" was told in the third person, but i saw that the language had changed and I wasn't sure how to take that this story didn't hold my interest at all unfortunately. The strong voice in the other piece was what it was lacking and even if i couldn't understand it was something that made Bambara's work unique.
When David Haynes wrote in his introduction that Toni Sade Bambara wrote “straight up fiction,” I knew I had to start reading her immediately. I had some trouble at first. It took me about three or four tries while reading the first page of “My Man Bovanne” to understand what was going on. However, once I got used to reading the dialect, the story seemed to flow beautifully, and I read it so quickly that I had to go back and make sure I didn't skip any pages. The way that Hazel talks is so distinct that it it was very easy to connect to her as a character. Hazel did what she wanted to do, even when she s criticized by her children, and it made it very easy to root for her character.
ReplyDeleteThe same feeling applied to “The Lesson.” Both the narrator and Sugar have quite an attitude. They are going through the story trying not to lose who they are, even when Mrs. Moore takes them through FAO Schwarz to show them the life of “privilege” they could have. They are floating between their simple lives and the sophisticated lifestyle of “people that spend that much for performing clowns and $1000 for toy sailboats” (111). However, the narrator and the other children make it clear that they are absolutely fine right where they are.
The story I had the hardest time connecting to was “The Organizers Wife,” which I found to be funny since it was written in the third person. I guess my brain had gotten to used to the dialect from the other stories. Virginia is trying to push for civil rights, even though she has a child and a husband in jail, which could lead to some dangerous consequences in her life. However, she knows what is right and she wants to use her voice to inspire the change her life and her family deseverve.