July 8, 2011
Page 79 (I know, only 6 pages after the last quote I posted about, but I feel as if this one carries a lot of importance)
"'Everything you sent me to school for, you're stripping me of it,' I told my aunt... 'The humiliation I had to go through, going into that man's kitchen. The hours I had to wait while they ate and drank and socialized before they would even see me. Now going up to that jail. To watch them put their dirty hands on that food. To search my body each time as if I'm some kind of common criminal. Maybe today they'll want to look into my mouth, or my nostrils, or make me strip. Anything to humiliate me. All the things you wanted me to escape by going to school. Years ago, Professor Antoine told me that if I stayed here, they were going to break me down to the nigger I was born to be. But he didn't tell me my aunt would help them do it.'"
- Grant talking to his aunt after she demands he goes to see Jefferson without Miss Emma
Grant's frustration has finally reached its boiling point about how white men treat him, and what they expect of him. The breaking point came with the betrayal he now feels from his aunt. At first I thought he was just mad about her ordering him around and telling him what to do, but now its clear that he's mad because she's just helping the white men to degrade him. He feels trapped by the constant racism, and yes it bothers him, but it mostly just makes him angry. But to be betrayed by someone you love and care about, by someone who raised you, is the biggest slap in the face anyone could ever experience. This clarifies the confusion as to why he's been so angry lately. Now that he's discovered the cause behind it, he can move past it. Perhaps him and Jefferson can help each other to work through the other's anger.
This also makes me wonder why his aunt is acting the way she is. If she wanted Grant to go to school, and move past the racism, why is she making him suffer through this, for someone who they aren't even related too? Her motives remain unclear, maybe that's just her personality. Maybe she just wants to help Miss Emma because she's like a sister. Maybe she thinks Grant has something to learn from this experience. Perhaps this is something else that Grant will have a realization about.
Great choice! What image is Grant trying to conjure? How is the mouth and nostrils historically degrading?
ReplyDeleteAlso what other images of disrobing have been present in this work?
ReplyDeleteGrant mentioned earlier in the book that slave owners used to check the mouths of slaves, much like they did will cattle, before buying them, to determined if they would be a good investment of not. That's what I took him to mean by saying that. They would inspect him as they would an animal.
ReplyDeleteGreat!!
ReplyDelete