AGENDA:
Morning Reflection: Grace. Please wait until Wednesday when I am there.
For Wednesday, you should have read all of Mudbound for class discussion (catch up if you're behind).
In the meantime, use PERIOD 1 to answer Questions 1, 2, and 3 on the blog. Support your comments with evidence from the test.
PERIOD 2: Work on short stories. First draft due Friday!
Discussion Questions
http://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/13-fiction/643-mudbound-jordan
1. The setting of the Mississippi Delta is intrinsic to Mudbound. Discuss the ways in which the land functions as a character in the novel and how each of the other characters relates to it.
2. Mudbound is a chorus, told in six different voices. How
do the changes in perspective affect your understanding of the story?
Are all six voices equally sympathetic? Reliable? Pappy is the only main
character who has no narrative voice. Why do you think the author chose
not to let him speak?
3. Who gets to speak and who is silent or silenced is a central
theme, the silencing of Ronsel being the most literal and brutal
example. Discuss the ways in which this theme plays out for the other
characters. For instance, how does Laura's silence about her unhappiness
on the farm affect her and her marriage? What are the consequences of
Jamie's inability to speak to his family about the horrors he
experienced in the war? How does speaking or not speaking confer power
or take it away?
4. The story is narrated by two farmers, two wives and mothers, and
two soldiers. Compare and contrast the ways in which these parallel
characters, black and white, view and experience the world.
5. What is the significance of the title? In what ways are each of
the characters bound—by the land, by circumstance, by tradition, by the
law, by their own limitations? How much of this binding is inescapable
and how much is self-imposed? Which characters are most successful in
freeing themselves from what binds them?
6. All the characters are products of their time and place, and
instances of racism in the book run from Pappy’s outright bigotry to
Laura’s more subtle prejudice. Would Laura have thought of herself as
racist, and if not, why not? How do the racial views of Laura, Jamie,
Henry, and Pappy affect your sympathy for them?
7. The novel deals with many thorny issues: racism, sexual politics,
infidelity, war. The characters weigh in on these issues, but what about
the author? Does she have a discernable perspective, and if so, how
does she convey it?
8. We know very early in the book that something terrible is going to
befall Ronsel. How does this sense of inevitability affect the story?
Jamie makes Ronsel responsible for his own fate, saying "Maybe that's
cowardly of me, making Ronsel's the trigger finger." Is it just
cowardice, or is there some truth to what Jamie says? Where would you
place the turning point for Ronsel? Who else is complicit in what
happens to him, and why?
9. In reflecting on some of the more difficult moral choices made by
the characters—Laura's decision to sleep with Jamie, Ronsel's decision
to abandon Resl and return to America, Jamie's choice during the
lynching scene, Florence's and Jamie's separate decisions to murder
Pappy—what would you have done in those same situations? Is it even
possible to know? Are there some moral positions that are absolute, or
should we take into account things like time and place when making
judgments?
10. How is the last chapter of Mudbound different from all
the others? Why do you think the author chose to have Ronsel address
you, the reader, directly? Do you believe he overcomes the formidable
obstacles facing him and finds "something like happiness"? If so, why
doesn't the author just say so explicitly? Would a less ambiguous ending
have been more or less satisfying?
1: The setting of the Mississippi Delta is intrinsic to Mud bound because it helps develop each of the characters throughout the novel. The setting of the story taking place in Mississippi helps the readers gain a better connection and a clear visualization of the characters traits. The setting functions as a character because it's the controlling idea that connects all six voices of the story together.
ReplyDelete2. The changes in perspective throughout the story affect my understanding of the story because as being the reader i can see the storyline from six different perspectives. One characters perspective can be the ideal reason for another significant characters point of view. Each point of view affects and relates to one another. All six voices in Mudbound are sympathetic because as each character is telling their story, there is a struggle that every character is facing.The author decided not to give Pappy a narrative voice because he probably would've changed the entire tone of the story. Pappy probably didn't have such a strong common connection like the other six characters.
3. Throughout the novel being silent or silenced is a central theme. For example, Laura's silence about her unhappiness on the farm affect her and her marriage in many ways. One affect being her vision of the farm/land that she had live on. Laura felt out of her comfort zone because she had expected and envisioned an entire different picture. So with being disappointed right at her arrival to her new home, Laura had to fake her excitement to her husband. With Henry's excitement spreading throughout all of the farm, Laura decided to remain silent and not to complain to save her husbands happiness. Laura remaining silent caused herself losing a bit of her intimate connection with her husband and her marriage.
1. Each character in Mudbound views the land in a different way, and it affects their characters throughout the novel. Laura hates the land. She longs for nice things, like toilets and other people. Since she lives so far from her friends and family, the land keeps her isolated, and it stokes her resentment. Hap sees the land as an opportunity, because he is always working towards planting a big enough harvest to be able to buy his own land. The land gives Hap hope, because to him it's a symbol of independence. Ronsel is the other way around, because he feels as if he's chained to the land, and wants nothing more than to leave. He wants to go somewhere where he's not affected by Jim Crow laws, and where he can live the life he got a taste of in Europe. Henry loves the land. For most of his life, the land represented his birthright and heritage, so his desire to work the land distracts him and causes him to neglect his wife. Florence doesn't really interact with the land, but merely moves around through it. She's extremely self-possessed and not really uncomfortable with anything, so she's almost a part of the land. It's exemplified with her dozens of superstitions which she uses to sort of adapt to the unfortunate things in her life. Jamie has the weakest connection to the land, because it's repellant to him. Jamie was raised on a farm with a father he hated, and the farm sort of represents that period of his life to him.
ReplyDelete2) Not all six voices in the story are reliable. I would consider Florence the most reliable, because she's very blunt and she's very intuitive. Henry is blind to many things and he's tainted with some of the prejudice of his father, so I wouldn't consider him very reliable or sympathetic. Jamie isn't terribly reliable either, because he's too troubled to see things like they are, rather than how they might be. Hap too is clouded by his desires, because he can't what Ronsel wants and therefore who he is. He doesn't understand that Ronsel may want to leave the South, because he wants him around to help him plant a bigger harvest. Laura is accurate in her recount of things, but she's too bitter to be impartial. Ronsel is a very accurate and mostly impartial voice, but he doesn't always see the here and now, preferring to be angry about what's not. Pappy is not given a voice because the story is about how two different families intermingle in each other's lives and how they interact. Pappy would be just a constant stream of hatred, and would only focus on that, and maybe Jamie. He can't relate to half of the characters, so he's not given a voice.
3) Talking is a basic form of communication, and in order to talk to someone is to be able to communicate with them. Henry and Laura don't talk because he can't understand her basic unhappiness and she doesn't know how to explain it to him. Ronsel looses his ability to communicate because society at the time didn't understand him. It's society's way of burning the bridge between him and them, because now they will never be able to communicate with him, and therefore will never understand him. Jamie doesn't communicate because again, he doesn't know how. He doesn't know how to relate what he's down and what he's seen. Be able to talk with someone is being able to let them understand you. Throughout the book, silence on the part of various characters exemplifies the lack of understanding that many of the characters have.
Nathan Pembrook and Ethan Gresko
ReplyDelete1. The land in Mudbound functions as a character by changing over time, just as characters in the novel do. Laura resents the land, "When I think of the land, I think of mud." On the other hand, Henry loves the land, "You always knew I intended to own my own land some day."
2. The changes in perspective greatly clarify the story by giving other points of views of key events in the plot. Not all six voices are equally reliable or sympathetic because each character has a different point of view for each event. Pappy probably doesn't have a voice because his point of view is to one sided.
3. Laura's silence about how she feels about the farm hurts her marriage because she is very unhappy. Jamie's silence about the war makes him feel alone and distant from his other family members. When someone is speaking they can tell the story however they see it (in their point of view) therefore giving them power to relate the story to the reader however they see fit.
1. Henry loves the land, but Laura hates it. To Henry the land represents success, hard work, and the American dream. Henry explains his love of the land: "From the minute I set foot on the property, I had a good feeling about it...The farm was everything I wanted," (Jordan 75). Laura, however, the land represents all that is wrong in her marriage, and all the ways in which she and Henry are not really compatible. Laura describes her feelings: "I was never so angry as those first months on the farm, watching Henry be happy," (94). To Hap and Florence, the land is fickle. It provides for them, but after the storm it seems determined to hurt them. The land has kept them from sharecropping, which was the bleak fate of many black farmers in Mississippi. However once Hap falls and breaks his leg, it seems that his family may have to borrow the McAllan's mule, which will cause them to become sharecroppers. But Ronsel comes home just in time to save the day. Ronsel doesn't love the land, but rather, he feels like it is a cage from which he must break free. Florence sees this in him and explains, "What he wanted was to leave. He never said so...but I could tell he wasn't happy from the day he got home," (160).
ReplyDelete2. The changes in perspective keeps the reader on their toes. The reader will think one thing, and then another character will tell a totally different story. This illustrates how people experience events differently, and a person's past always plays a role in the way they react to events in the present. Not all voices are sympathetic. Henry seems harsh and racist. Henry explains his misguided view on ethics and race relations: "Whatever else the colored man may be, her's our brother. A younger brother, to be sure, undisciplined and driven by his appetites, but also kindly and tragic and humble before God," (77). Laura is more sympathetic, but her trials sometimes seem trivial. She is empathetic to the problems of others, as evidenced by the time she found the Jewish doctor who would help Hap, because the local doctor was extremely racist. Ronsel is easily identified with, because his struggles are universal. He feels trapped and he resents how poorly he is treated. Pappy is the antagonist, and he is not really meant to be understood. He represents all the misogyny and racism of the South, and giving him the opportunity to tell his own story would dilute the symbolism of his character.
3. Laura's forced silence causes her to resent her husband. She resents the fact that she has to be silent in her unhappiness. She tells us that "For the children's sakes, and for the sake of my marriage, I hid my feelings, maintaining a desperate cheerfulness," (95). For Jamie, not being able to speak causes him to act out. He does this when he gets drunk and crashes the car into a cow. He deals with his silence by hiding it under layers of inebriation and charm. Jamie describes his role in the family, "I was the designated charmer of the household, the one responsible for keeping everybody else's spirits up. To play my part I needed booze," (206). Not speaking gives power to the speaker, but it can also help the silenced maintain some power. Not speaking allows someone to maintain dignity in a situation where they might otherwise compromise their principles.
Kayli Zeluff, Grace Landers, Nikki Ehmann, Carly Swift-Horth:
ReplyDelete1. Mississippi at this time was extremely racist and judgmental. Because of this, the treatment and rude behavior towards Ronsel was accepted even if it wasn't right. The setting itself is a character because it plays the role of the main antagonist. The land always caused problems for the characters and made everyone miserable.
2. The changes in perspective affects the readers understanding of the story because it gives us a more dimensional view of the plot and of the overall story. Each of the voices have their own opinions and views of things so they don't all feel the same way about things. For example, Pappy is completely racist and hates Ronsel whereas Jamie helps Ronsel out and doesn't care about skin color. The author probably didn't give Pappy a voice because the readers get enough of his opinions by the way he talks to people.
3. Laura is silent about her unhappiness because she doesn't want to upset her family, especially her husband. Her silence ultimately affects her marriage because she is being untruthful with her husband about her true feelings. Because she is so unhappy with her life, she cheats on her husband while he's away with her brother. Because Jamie is unable to tell his family about the horrible things that happened in the war, he turns to drinking and is constantly drunk. Since he's always drunk, he doesn't make the best decisions and end up sleeping with his brothers wife.
(Sorry this is short Gamzon. the blog wouldn't let me post the original comment and so I had to redo it quick so I could work on my story.)
1. The land in the novel has a role of a linchpin, it sort of ties them all together in that they all are connected to it through family or work. The story is told in six different voices some racist and some not. This allows the reader to have a different perspective of the story and also allows us to see situations through everyone’s eyes. Laura is connected to the land through blood, as it was her father’s land that she never wanted. Henry always wanted to have land and Jamie helps him tend it when he is in need.
ReplyDelete2. Often times hearing a story told different ways allows you to pick out the truths in each. I think the author chose to not give Pappy a voice because she wanted him to be portrayed as a bad person. When you are allowed to have your opinion you have the opportunity to tell your side of the story but Pappy will not be given that chance. An example of this is on page 12 where Laura says, “He had no interest in holding her or any other child, he just liked knowing she was afraid of him. When she wouldn’t come, he told her she was too fat to sit on his lap anyways, she might break his bones.” This is the person the author wants Pappy to be, by not giving him a voice she allows him to remain defenseless.
3. This book is set in a time in which black people weren’t allowed to speak and Ronsel experiences that as a black character in the book. Ronsel was always segregated from his white counterparts including during the war and of course he had opinion on it but he was allowed to speak on it, for fear he would have a bad fate. Laura is another character in the book that is also silence by others. When she was younger her father, who often made her, and even her children, feel inferior and worthless, silenced her. Although Henry loves her unconditionally, he also silences her because of her disdain for the land they live on. He never wanted it and yet there she remains. Jamie is most suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and feels that he is unable to tell anyone what he went through during his time in the war.
1.) In Mudbound there's many floods and at times it gets really hot outside. The characters in this novel prepares themselves for the floods.
ReplyDelete2.) I can understand all six of the character's p.o.v's and their roles they have in this story. I believe most of the characters are sympathetic but at the same time they're all reliable. For example, Ronsel experience lots of racism while in England, but he was man enough to come back home. Where at home he experiences it worst. Also Jamie he's very sympathetic because, he tends to have dreams about the flood, but his brother Henry consoles him. I think the author chose not to let Pappy speak because it's better to here from a women's p.o.v how Pappy really is. I believe Pappy would try to make himself the victim as and excuse why he treats Laura the way he does.
3.) I believe Laura doesn't have to guts to let her family know how she really feels. Also this effects her marriage because, when she walks around unhappy know no one will know why. Jamie's consequences of not telling his family know about his horrors of the war, leads to bullying. This is because he doesn't understand the way of life anymore after coming home from the war. This speaking or not speaking makes the situations these characters face worse than what they are. I believe it confers power it builds character confidence.
1Each character in Mudbound has very different views. Laura is very displeased with the land, seeing as she is a city girl. Laura grows resentful of Henry for moving her to Mississippi without discussing it with her. Hap views his land as a way out. Once he has enough land, he can break free from Henry and Pappy McAllan and buy his own land. Hap and Florence uses their land as survival but after the storm hits everything seems to crumble. Hap ends up falling off of a latter and breaking his leg, which causes Florence to go out and work in the fields and it also causes them to borrow Henry's mule. Which turns them into sharecroppers. Ronsel who has just returned from fighting in the war, changes everything. He buys his parents a mule so they no longer have to have to use the McAllan's. Even though working in the fields is not Ronsel's favorite cup of tea, but he is determined to get his family away from the McAllan's grip. Henry is in love with the land, "From the minute I set foot on the land, I had a good feeling bout it... The farm was everything I wanted."
ReplyDelete2.Mudbound changes perspective multiple times during the book, which at times changes my view during the story. Most of the character are reliable and sympathetic. Jamie for example is very sympathetic toward his sister- in-law Laura. He sees how sad she is and how much his brother doesn't show her love on certain ways and he makes it his obligations. He is also very loving toward his niece Bella. He makes it his responsibility to show the woman in his life more than enough attention, but on the other hand he is not reliable his bad drinking problems poses a huge threat. His drinking problems leads him to killing a cow and injuring the woman he was riding with. I believe that Pappy has no narrative voice because everyone has a strong hatred for him that he speaks enough through everyone else's view of him. His opinions are voiced enough by the way he speaks with people.
3. Silence can hurt people in many ways. By being silent Laura never discusses her hatred for the far. She simply keeps brushing it under the rug, which in the end makes her resent her husband. For example when she tells us "For the children's sakes, and for the sake of my marriage, I hid my feelings, maintaining a desperate cheerfulness," she forces her happiness to make her family one. For Jamie his inability to speak to his family about his war experience causes him to drink. His drinking problem becomes a major issue. It gets to the point where he cannot function properly without alcohol in his system. Not speaking in my eyes strips your power from you because at the end of the day if you don't or can't speak up nothing changes. You will always be resentful like Laura or stuck in a bad situation like Jamie. But at the same time speaking can harm people, like Ronsel, he was in a dangerous place trying to change things.
Imani McLamore
1) The land relates to each character because that's where they live and they know the conditions of the weather, so I think each character prepare themselves for the flood.
ReplyDelete2) All six point of views gives readers a better understanding about the story because it helps you think from all of their perspectives instead of one person. Yes I think all point of views were sympathetic and Jamie, Ronsel and Laura sounds the most reliable to me. I think Pappy doesn't have a narration in the story because he's racist and doesn't like Ronsel and he would probably make himself the victim and have everyone feel bad for his point of view, when really he was in the wrong.
3) Speaking or not speaking is tearing down the confidence of these characters. Its making them have emotions that normally does not fit with their everyday appearance. By Jamie not telling anyone about his war horrors is turning him into a bully, and Laura doesn't tell anyone she's unhappy because she scared to let her family know how she really feels, and as for her marriage, "For the children's sakes, and for the sake of my marriage, I hid my feelings, maintaining a desperate cheerfulness."