Comparing Texts on the Conflicts in the Human Mind - Essay Example

? Theme Literature always deals with the conflicts in the mind of the human being, along with the torments, collapse, and their subsistence itself. When a piece of literature makes known the totality of the human race, only we can say that it is of merit. The stories like ‘Recitatif’ by Tony Morrison , Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin, A Pair of Tickets by Amy Tam are thus boast about a common theme in which the characters struggle to find out their own roles in life. The stories stand unique in the theme. The stories try to liberate human minds from the tangles of interpersonal conflicts. The characters strive hard to reach their origin through self awareness and individuality. Thus the stories effectively deal with the problem of racism, and suffering and thus a corridor to the real self. The pain of the people when they are questioned for identity is crucial in the life of common man especially in a society which tolerates racism. Tony Morrison’s ‘Recitatif’ is the only published story by him which says about the conflicts in the mind of two girls –one –black and one white – from the time they meet in an orphanage. Later when they grew up to mothers and possess different economic and political status but fail to regain the strength of the old friendship. Twyla the narrator meets Roberta in an orphanage St, Bonaventure. Twyla has the reflections in mind about the comments made by her mother about the race of Roberta. Later, against her prejudices she finds Roberta more accepting and compassionate to the situation. The two girls are now thrown by the same circumstance, the absence of their mothers to take care of them. They are orphans having someday to enquire about. The pain of the absence of their mothers even if they are alive exists in their minds. According to Tony Morrison “ Twyla’s mother ‘dances all night’. For Roberta her mother is sick”. Despite the racial tension between them, they establish an unknown or indefinable attraction towards each other, may be resulting from the isolation both of them suffer together, resulting from the aloofness to the situation they are in now. But what their minds set demands are the same despite of their colors, they are, no matter black or white, but have the same emotions and thoughts towards the solitude. The writer is placing the readers in a dilemma to find out the black or white. As readers sometimes we will be searching the individuality of a black or white. The two faces are masked in front of the readers. They are growing up in the community with the same tensions. The common fear of the two towards the elder girls is one reason for their mutual relation Twyla says “They’d light out after us and pull our hair or twist our arms. We were scared of them, Roberta and me, but neither of us w wanted the other to know it”. This leads them to help Maggie, the mute kitchen lady. According to Tony Morrison, ‘Maggie fell down there once …and the big girls laughed at her. We should have helped her I know, but we were scared of those girls with lipstick and eyebrow pencil”. This clearly shows that their relationship is mutually contributing to their own tensions and sufferings instead of the racial issues that sometimes stir their minds. The child hood memories about Maggie, the least important character of “Recitatif” plays a hidden role in the minds of the two girls. The readers can easily find that the Maggie is a powerless character who only reminds them about their racial separation, to a great extend that leads them to come out from the ethnic differences. Whenever they meet after leaving the orphanage Maggie s comes in their memories and talk. The orchard described by the narrator also plays a vital role in their ill-treatment. The racial culture was not only apparent in the lives of women but also their status. Robert got married to an I B M officer and Twyla to a fireman. The divergence in their thought pattern disclose with the disagreement of Twyla towards what happened in the orchard. Tony Morrison consciously uses such a setting of orchard to highlight the outlook of the two characters. Her thoughts are also found to be deceiving her when she experiences such strangeness in the opinions of Barbara. In Twyla‘s words “Nothing really happened there. Nothing all important, I mean”. According to David Goldstein –Shirley “This comment is most problematic. The entire narrative comprises Twyla’s recollections of past events. If, as readers naturally assumes when reading a first-person account, the narrator is speaking to them in present ,then why would Twyla say that nothing really happened in the orchard ? Telling a retrospective story, she ought to know that the incident with Maggie, which obsesses her throughout the story, is not only significant but crucial. “ The town in which they live also becomes a place of storm. The class difference makes them to stand at the opposite poles. We must think that the bond between the two prevented them from releasing the concealed emotions which stands due to racism. Anderson observes “During child hood, this bond concealed complications of race and class, but now with where each of the women in this tightly knit community, race takes on a whole new meaning” Twyla opposes Roberta’s actions but when she was attacked, unknowingly she was groping for the hands of Roberta in vein. In Twyla’s words “ I automatically reached for Roberta like in the old days in the orchard….if one of us fell the other pulled her up and if one of us was caught the other stayed to kick and scratch, and neither would leave the other behind. My arm shot out of the car window but no receiving hands were there. Towards the end of the story we can see that both of them are searching for the identity and unable to conclude who are they, a black or a white. Like that of Twyla stretching her hands for a help when she was alienated in the mob, Sonny in the story ‘Sonny’s blues’ also badly in need of a helping hand. Like the two girls in the orphanage Sonny also suffers from without his parents. The absence of parents is a condition similar to that of being orphan. The story is about the two brothers who come to a relation only through their suffering. Torments made them depart each other and the torments itself later reunite them. The story closely observes the social conflicts and rage that the African American had to suffer at that time. The two brothers, one being an algebra teacher and the other a singer is not getting chances in Harlem and destined to remain there itself. Circumstances drag them to extreme corners of life . In the beginning Sonny’s brother was found not much interested in Sonny’s life. When one of Sonny’s friends narrates the story of the singer it does not arise the compassion of a brother at the first time. But later the true bother awake in him and began to enquire “But now, abruptly I hated him “was his first reaction to the strange friend. As he goes o to tell about Sonny’s addiction in using heroine, we can sense a hidden caring from the narrator. He says “So what is going to happen to him now.” Sonny’s suffers a lot for the closeness of the dear ones. This is clear from the letter that he writes from the jail. The letter here continues till he return back to is place. By this time the narrator started to worry about his brother. Thus the two develop an understanding each other. The struggling due to confinement is the main idea of this story. The preconceived notions and prevalent concepts were deep rooted in the society which made the life of African American, spiteful. Sonny is in jail accused of using heroine, his brother in Harlem. Sonny’s brother is also not revealing his inner feelings towards his brother. This is what we feel when we compare Twyla in ‘Recitatif’ to Sonny’s brother. Both of them were emotionally bound. She fails to act to Maggie as she wished. Here Sonny’s brother is also unable to release his mind from the emotional stress he suffers. We know that the compassion towards his brother was not the creation of an external force but it was part of his personality. The story told to him about his brother by the stranger was the means to flare the inner fervor towards his younger brother. He, at this time reflects on the words of his mother”. “I ain’t telling you all this to make you scared or a bitter to make you hate nobody. I ‘am telling you this because you got a brother.” And the world ain’t changed”. She points out an early incident in their life in which her husband’s younger brother was run over by a car with full of white man. She asks her elder son to look after his brother. More than Sonny, his brother is a typical representative of the suffering class people of that time. At a time he even fails to identify himself and his pains. This leads Sonny to be thrown away to the mud pits of Harlem. Shortly their mother die and both of them bear a kind of orphan. Late r Sonny shows interests in piano, but his brother is unresponsive. Slowly we can see he establishes a bond toward his musical instrument which acts as his own words, expression, emotion etc. The confession of Isabel also divulges that.” It wasn’t like living with a person at all; it was like living with a sound”. Sonny’s sufferings were because of the lack of a motivator, an external force. The power, the charisma that leads him whole life is the music. Sonny’s brother recognized this only towards the end when he finds his brother respected by all the people in a jazz club. There he finds him pouring out his emotions and struggles in the form of music. What leads him now to spot out his brothers musical qualities? The readers are forced to think that when he was able to distinguish his love towards his brother, only he finds music also as a powerful agent to let out emotions. He is led to a personnel awareness of human infirmity through the death of his young daughter. Now he recalls how his mother sympathetically comforted his father when his brother was intentionally hit and killed by a car. Thus Baldwin addresses the issues of darkness, anxiety that prevailed in the life of African American during that time. The third story is a pair of tickets by Amy Tan which also tries to untangle complexities in the relations. Here are sufferings, mental battle, pain and loneliness that arise from the realization of the facts which are always not much sweet. This story presents an unbelievably interesting outlook of a woman named June May who is travelling through the native country China. This is a journey of self discovery. She is in search of her roots where her mother was once. Along ther way she meets her family members including twin stepsisters. Her journey causes an intense struggle that she experiences throughout the story. The issues presented here are that of identity and self –awareness. The internal conflicts in her mind are very effectively revealed. The readers are also put into a dilemma when she thinks about the pure “Chinese?” Sometimes we feel that she disliked being a Chinese. According to Amy Tan “I saw myself transforming like were wolf haggling with store owners, pecking her mouth with the tooth brush I public, being color-blind to the fact that lemon yellow and pale pink are not good combinations for winter clothes.” When she reached at the air port she is much afraid about her identity. She feels a bewilderment to use her American name June May instead of her Chinese name Jing-Jei. She slowly transforms into a pure Chinese girl. She meets her family members there including her step sisters. She suffers the pain and pleasure of self discovery. The journey from am American to that of a Chinese is not much effortless. The internal struggle that June May experiencing is so intense. All time she tries to compare it with that of American life. The different people and the different sceneries are viewed through the lens of a n American. Each and every process even waiting in line for check also arouse in her a kind of native feeling of waiting for a bus in San Francisco . She is June may. Immediately when she reaches dear ones she introduces herself as Jing-Mei. We can assume that there is a conscious attempt from the part of June May to agree to the essentials of her life, from the depths of her heart and soul. She is dubious about her own safety in the alien place. When she sees the unsecure conditions in the construction site she also feels a lack of emotional safety. But again she was able to find more resemblance with that found in America. The gulf between the two cultures that was in her thought and understanding began to be reduced. Her cousin Lily poses for a picture, she says “in the manner of a fashion model “. These all give her the view that the Chinese family is more American in nature than she expected. We can assume that she is not consciously matching all the situations but the unconscious Chinese that is an element of her personality. This is the corridor to self discovery. When Jing-Mei’s father narrates the story of his wife’s distressing story of passage from China to America, it is the first time Jing-Mei accepts it with grief. She was meeting her own Chinese mother in the story for the first time. Along with her mother she was able to travel through the same mental agony. She describes” finding my mother in my father’s story “ . Jing –Mei slowly recognizes the importance of her Chinese connection. The reunion of her father with her aunt reopens the core Chinese tang. That is a self discovery. The refrigerated memories are unfrozen now. He meaning of her mother’s name Suyuan is long –cherished wish. The unfulfilled desires of her mother are satisfied through Jing Mei. The reunion with her twins gives her a kind of relief from the mysterious heaviness that was component of the self. The letters from her twin sisters in China to her mother is a voice from the past to reach the destination, the mother who was unknown to them. What Jing-Mei does here is a going back to the bygone days to come to the present... The write is able provide her such a string base on which she can build her future. In her words “And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood. After all these years, it can finally be let go “. It obvious from the story that a cognizant effort is needed to break the confinements of what we are now, for the realization of what is the essence in ones personality. That was possible for Jing-Mei because she had taken the pain and was successfully encountered it. The story questions the misbelief of some people who think that they are the most known and privileged. When Jing-Mei started telling herself: I am in China”, she demanding herself to be identical with the Chinese. In fact the three stories discussed here are revelations of battle in human minds who are the unknown but unavoidable parts of the society .The particular era noticed for the discrimination and humiliation of human beings based on economy and cultural issues. The literature of that time effectively used the theme of these sufferings in the works. The people were compartmentalized on race and region. The chances offered to them were less. The religious and racial forbearance were not much. The momentous relations established for a settlement were also found destroying the whole life a marginalized. It was a must and call for the underprivileged to find their own foundation for as a scaffold for the future. In Sonny’s Blues Sonny is happy to be with his own blood, but he cannot avoid the music in him. Thus Sonny’s brother is now started living in his brother’s world with music. In “A Pair of Tickets “ Jing-_Mei also starts a new life with her near and dear ones. Blood realizes blood. All the relations are now established and the journey is fulfilled. But in ‘Recitatif’ the relation between Roberta and that of Twyla is shallow or transitory. They can never come to the others world. The bitter fact that the racism and suffering cannot be barred from the minds of the people though it does not have legal support, is underlined in the story ‘Recitatif’. Work Cited Morrison Tony, (1983),Recitatif Gold stein-Shirley, David “Race and Response: Tony Morrison’s Recitatif. Abel, Elizabeth “Black Writing, White writing: race and the Politics of Feminist Interpretation “in Critical Inquiry. Spring Baldwin, James (1957), Sonny’s Blues, Goig to Meet The Man, http://cai.ucdavis.edu/ http://www.enotes.com http://www.scribd.com http://englishmatters.gmu.edu/ http://onlineessays.com/ Wikipedia.org Read More