The End of Something and The Song of Solomon

p. 117—“Annoyed by Milkman’s indifference, he relieved his agitation by straightening up the room. He pulled an empty crate from underneath the straight-backed chair leaning in the corner, and started dumping trash into the box: dead matches from the window sill, pork bones from the barbecue he had eaten the day before. He crumpled the pleated paper cups that had been overflowing with cole slaw and fired them into the crate. ‘Every n----- I know wants to be cool. There’s nothing wrong with controlling yourself, but you can’t control other people.’ He looked sideways at Milkman’s face, alert for any sign, any opening. This kind of silence was new. Something must have happened. Guitar was genuinely worried about his friend, but he also didn’t want anything to happen in his room that would bring the police there.” 

The End of Something:

Nick and Marjorie show us the end of a relationship

"I can't help it," Nick said. "You do. You know everything. That's the trouble. You know you do." (Hemingway 34)

Song of Solomon: 

Guitar and Milkman show us the wariness of a relationship that's about to change

‘Every n----- I know wants to be cool. There’s nothing wrong with controlling yourself, but you can’t control other people.’ (Morrison 117)

What ties it together:

Both stories speak of the end of a relation or friendship

Love Medicine

Outlining:

Intro: In relationships, the one who cares the least is the one who holds the power. The patterns of power that both Marie and Nector’s showed over each other show that love is just as much about attachment and enjoyment of one to one’s partner as much as it is obligation. And that even as that love wears thin, as long as one still desires the other, neither will ever be free. Years had gone by since Marie had found out about Nector’s infidelities, yet her love for him tied her to him. Had she spoken up about what she knew to be true, then she would have risked losing him, something that no one in love could bear. Her love for him was a love that provided and made one stronger. On the other hand, it was Marie’s love for him that gave Nector his power, but when he attempted to give up on Marie and go to Lulu, severing that attachment of love, he found himself ultimately unable to do so because of the power of obligation that Marie held over him.

BP1: Just sufficient love: Nector over Marie

-          “What was mostly our problem was not so much that he was not all there, but that what was there of him often hankered after Lamartine” (239)

-          Nector’s power over Marie came from the fact that she loved him, but it also came from the fact that she knew that the other person of his desire was one who could have brought shame to her. For Marie, her pride was quickly becoming her downfall once again. Nector acted as a father for the children, but that was obligation as they were also the children of his own. It was not that he did not have some inkling of the love he once had for Marie, but the fact that, “what was there of him often hankered after Lamartine” and everyone who saw them knew it (Erdrich 239).

Marie wants to win him back

BP2: Want to keep it love: Marie over Nector

-          “Grandma tried to get me to put the touch on Grandpa soon after he began stepping out.” (232)

Throughout their love, Marie constantly worked to improve Nector as a person and as a father. It was her work that helped him fight off his enjoyment of alcohol which had previously hampered him. The way she loved him was through improving him as a person which made him stronger. She even petitioned to their son to “put the touch on” him, but even he could see that his magic touch was not what their relationship needed (255).

BP3: Obligation trumps all:

“It was stronger than we thought. He came back even after death to claim me to his side.” (255)

Choices

Nector Kashpaw's most interesting (or least interesting) characteristic is that he absolutely refuses to make a decision for himself in his life except for two notable examples: the first refusal of his to pose for the Old Woman and his decision to get with Lulu and carry on his affair. After these choices however, his ability to continue making choices instead of just floating along life's current is once again disappears. He always gives in to pushing, just as Lulu was able to offer him something, so did the Old Woman. Both of these women "offered (him) so much that he had to forget his dignity" (Erdrich 120) and succeeded in pushing him to do exactly what they wanted. The Old Woman desired to turn him into art and Lulu alluded towards desiring to make him her own.

Even in watching the aftermath of his actions, he still refused to make any choice that would have stopped the current current of life and correct it. When the Old Woman finished her work, he, "wouldn't fight it, and in that way [he'd] get to shore" (120) and while he watched Lulu's house burn down, the best he can claim is that, "[he] had done nothing" (141). 

Choices

Nector Kashpaw's most interesting (or least interesting) characteristic is that he absolutely refuses to make a decision for himself in his life except for two notable examples: the first refusal of his to pose for the Old Woman and his decision to get with Lulu and carry on his affair. After these choices however, his ability to continue making choices instead of just floating along life's current is once again disappears. He always gives in to pushing, just as Lulu was able to offer him something, so did the Old Woman. Both of these women "offered (him) so much that he had to forget his dignity" (Erdrich 120) and succeeded in pushing him to do exactly what they wanted. The Old Woman desired to turn him into art and Lulu alluded towards desiring to make him her own.

Even in watching the aftermath of his actions, he still refused to make any choice that would have stopped the current current of life and correct it. When the Old Woman finished her work, he, "wouldn't fight it, and in that way [he'd] get to shore" (120) and while he watched Lulu's house burn down, the best he can claim is that, "[he] had done nothing" (141). 

Unit Wrap-Up

In this unit, the American Dream was examined through the use of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Earnest Hemingway’s In Our Time. Though these tales, that great American ideal of being it all was illustrated through the use of characters who appeared to be living the dream, and those who yearned for something. In the short stories of Hemingway, tales were told of homely soldiers who returned home from war, the seemingly superficial desires of femininity, and the truth about what it means to be in a relationship. However, all of his characters are rather grounded. They don’t return to lavish parties and heroism, but instead to an everyday life that goes on without them. In Fitzgerald’s work, a long-going tale of desire and grandeur was told, but it was told in a world in which every characters who was a major player was a part of that esteemed upper-class that seemed to have it all.

                The American Dream is not to be just successful, but to be more successful than those who came before you. It can include tales of heroism in the war, or loves both lost and refound, but at its core, it is about being something that the ones before you can be proud of. When Gatsby decided that he wanted to become “old money” he gave up everything from his family, his old life, and even his last name. He abandoned the people who made him into who he was to chase the spoiled dream of Americanism that he suddenly found himself tantalizingly close to in his army days. In Hemingway’s work, his characters were much more real to the majority of Americans, the hard workers. His characters were the ones who returned to battle too late or tried to hold onto a love too strong. They showed a different side of the American Dream because they weren’t the ones who could just sit back and let success fall into them. Their pitfalls were the pitfalls of reality.

 

                While both of these men showed the different sides of society and how they strive for the dream, neither of their characters were truly happy. Perhaps the lesson about the dream is that the only way to be a true success as you grow is to become the person you’ve always wanted to be, not who society thinks you should be.  

Relationships

This project reflected on the nature of relationships as over the course of a life, they only seem to grow more and more complicated as outside sources such as friends, work, a family, and other’s expectations pileup. To me, relationships are the connection between two people and the weight of their shared worlds between them. It means that no matter what you’ve done or where you are, you have someone out there thinking of you always. Love is, of course, always an important factor in a relationship, but sometimes peoples’ misconceptions of what love is cloud their expectations of what are relationship should be.  Not everyone is able to find that kind of relationship in their life, but when those who are need to know how precious what they have is.

            In my reduction, I took a couple backwards in time through their wedding, to their first “real date” at prom, to time at the very beginning of their relationship just standing in a field, alone, but together. As they move backwards in time, the amount of “stuff” necessary to show where they are together lessens. In the first image, they are at their most formal, preparing to make the final walk that will tie them together for the rest of their lives. This is the point of no return for either of them because in society, to renounce this claim of one another is a mark of shame. In the second, they are at the entrance of their senior prom. He’s bought her a bouquet which now dangles from his hand and she looks around nervously. To “come out” to society at an event such as this is to “go steady”. In the final picture, they are simply standing together in a field. There is no one looking on, no societal role they have to fill. By taking away almost everything that would govern what they might decide to do, I gave them the most freedom they would ever have.  

            Eventually I learned that to me, relationships equal a lack of freedom and that perhaps I was the one who was looking at things the wrong way. The dalliance of the final picture is what appeals to me the most, but it is also what disappears as relationships progress. Once people and societal roles began getting involved with my picture, I realized I began to use less color and less, well, happiness, shown through. As a whole, this picture showed to me that in my point of view, it isn’t what everyone else things of people being together, but what they feel for each other that is important. One doesn’t need church buildings or the acceptance of peers to be happy. They just need each other. 

Cross-Country Snow (Ernest Hemingway)

Hemingway's Cross Country Snow explores the idea of choices and the realization that people's reaction to experience is rarely the same. Nick experiences the beginning of the end of relationship with a friend because of their choice to have sex. So simple an act changed both his friend and his girlfriend's lives, as now they are charged with managing how to raise a kid together. Just as it is in life sometimes, few sympathies are made by Nick except for the fact that he realizes this shall be their last winter ski together. This was the loss of both a friendship and a person in his life because in raising a child, his friend is losing both his freedom and his home.

     The women in this story are mentioned only in passing as Nick states that, "no girls get married around here till they're knocked up." The woman of this tale, Helen, is never appears, but serves as a figure whose the men's return to ushers in the end of their era as friends and brothers.

     Nick and his friend's reaction to this event differ, as for Nick, the loss he is facing is far less than the one his friend is, so therefore he feels not nearly as much interest in the matter. His friend however is about to lose this life that he has worked so hard for. Nick's focus on the snow and his friend's focus on the rest of his life is what drives the discussion in this final meeting of theirs in the ski-house.