Resistance, Refashioning, and Revolution

"the menace of its greyness" (l.20).
Amiri Baraka's "The Invention of Comics"

Points for Reflection

Dorothy West's "Mammy" (1940), Dover 158-65

1. how does the arrogant white resident of the Central Park West apartment display her disdain for her black co-passenger in the elevator?
2. why does the young investigator expect to be treated with kindness by the young elevator operator?
3. the story tosses about a few possibilities for why Mrs. Coleman refers to Mrs. Mason as “Mammy.”  Is there a single, straight explanation?
4. why, presumably, did Mrs. Coleman wish to keep “Mammy” in the house?
5. does the elevator operator’s rationale for his earlier behavior successfully win over the investigator?
6. initially, the investigator dismisses Mrs. Mason’s accusation of Mrs. Coleman’s serving the devil as so much superstition.  The investigator believes the accusation of infanticide to be made-up.  Is the reader encouraged to adopt this same dismissive attitude?

Ann Petry's "The Bones of Louella Brown" (1947), Dover 166-78

1. where does Petry insert humor into this tale, and to what end?
2. why does Old Peabody remember Louella Brown so vividly?
3. is Stuart Reynolds, the Harvard medical student hired to examine the bones, surprised by his findings?  Why, or why not?
4. why might the bones and hair of the Countess of Castro and Louella Brown resemble one another’s so closely?
5. does Young Whiffle agree with Old Peabody that the debacle on their hands could conceivably be even worse?
6. where is this tale set, and what does its geographical location suggest about the state of racism in America at mid-century?
7. why doesn’t the undertakers’ attempt to provide evidence that one set of bones belongs to the Countess actually work?
8. what disturbs the retired governor more than anything else when he gazes at the two sets of bones?
9. are we to believe that memories haunt Old Peabody, or the actual spirit of Louella?
10. why does the epitaph placed on the marble slab at Bedford Abbey employ the conjunction “or” instead of “and”?

Langston Hughes's "Afro-American Fragment" (1959), PDF

1. why open and close the first stanza with the first three, short lines?
2. does the narrator call upon a thread of shared, oral history woven throughout his ancestors’ experience?
3. how useful are history books, songs, and the English language itself at capturing African-American experience, according to the narrator?
4. is the song heard by the narrator a product of the past, the present, or a melding of both?

Langston Hughes's "Dream Variations" (1959), PDF

1. do stanza one and stanza two constitute repetition of the same dream, or do they differ enough to be considered “variations” on a theme?
2. which does the narrator prefer, at present, day or night?
3. why transform “white day” (l.5) to “quick day” (l.13)?

Street to Mbari (1964)
Jacob Lawrence

Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu