Blog #4

     In If He Hollers Let Him Go, motivation and anagnorisis is seen where Bob is locked in the closet with Madge. I believe Madge’s motive for locking her and Bob in the closet and screaming rape was because she felt denied by Bob and acted with revenge. Bob says “look, baby, I don’t want you. I don’t want no part of you, that’s final.’ And I mean it” (Himes, 179). When Bob said that, it triggered something in Madge and she just hissed “you’re a liar” (Himes, 179). When a worker discovered that there was someone locked in the closet, Madge thought it was the perfect opportunity to get Bob into trouble and screams out “Help! Help! My God, help me! Some white man, help me! I’m being raped” (Himes, 180) and “ Stop, nigger! Don’t nigger! Nigger, don’t! Oh, please don’t kill me, nigger....” (Himes, 180). 

While Madge is creating a “rape” scene,  Bob doesn’t even know what to say or think. Bob thinks to himself “But my mind could not rationalize it, could get no sense out if it. I could see and hear but could not move” (Himes, 180). Anagnorisis isn’t seen until after Bob unlocks the closet door and is beaten badly by the white male workers. Bob wakes un in the hospital with the guard next to him. Bob thinks to himself “I didn’t get scared right away; I’d been thinking so hard about what was going to happen to her when the people knew the truth” (Himes. 187) And then Bob gets the harsh realization and then says to himself “I knew in one great flash she really could send me to the pen for thirty years. I knew there was no way in the world I could prove I hadn’t tried to rape her” (Himes, 187). After realizing this, the only thing he could think of was to escape. 

Blogpost #2

     The discussion that interested me the most were the antics on Mrs. Hall. It really helped me understand why Mrs. Hall acted the way she was towards Ruth and her two daughters. Being conservative and looking at Ruth’s way of living, even when she was with Harry, really angered her. I’m writing about Mrs. Hall for my essay, so the class discussion also also gave me some really good passages in the novel to write about.

I also learned a lot more about Mrs. Hall when Katy had to stay with her and the doctor. It was a chance for Mrs. Hall to change Katy into another conservative Christian lady like herself, since she couldn’t get to Ruth. Mrs. Hall says “ go get that stool, now sit down on it, at my feet, and let me cut off those foolish dangling curls” (Fern, 165) to Katy. Mrs. Hall knew that her mother Ruth liked them, so she cut them off. Mrs. Hall didn’t like Ruth’s blonde curls either, since it was considered ‘fashionable’, but she couldn’t do anything about Ruth. Mrs. Hall also says to Katy while cutting her hair, “you are to always live with me now, Katy; it makes no difference what your mother thinks or says about anything, so you needn’t quote her; I’m going to try to make a good girl of you.” (Fern, 165) And then says “You ought to love me very much for it, better than anybody else in the world- don’t you?” (Fern, 165) When Katy stayed silent, Mrs. Hall repeated herself. That passage really showed how strict she is and how Mrs. Hall is willing to do anything to sculpt Katy into the perfect little girl and to make her despise her own mother.

Blog post #1

     In Lina Grasso’s essay “Anger in the House: Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall and The Redrawing of Emotional Boundaries in Mid-Nineteenth Century America”, it explained why

Elizabeth Cady Stanton defended Ruth Hall and why she applauded the novel. Both the mainstream and the abolitionist press claimed “Fern had violated standards of propriety by publishing a thinly-veiled description of a contentious family feud.” Caroline Dall is also one of the people that is against Ruth Hall, and says Fanny Fern had no talent and was “prudent and heartless.” The essay explains the Ruth Hall controversy between Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Caroline Dall.

Stanton says that Ruth Hall expresses anger towards men, but I got a sense that Ruth felt like she didn’t need to be angry at men, or at anyone else. Sure, people talked, but Ruth just cared about herself and surviving with her two daughters. The incident where Ruth’s daughter Katy visits her grandfather for money, is a perfect example of how Ruth reacts to cruelty towards her. Ruth’s own father sends his grandchild home crying with only a dollar, and Ruth’s reaction to her daughter crying was just “No, no, Katy, don’t cry; you shall never go there again for money.” When Ruth found the money that the gentleman gave Katy, she quickly scolded Katy and said “Why! what’s this, Katy. Grandpa has made a mistake. You must run right back as quick as ever you can with this money, or I’m afraid he will be angry.” Ruth saying that also shows how weak of a person she is for almost apologizing to her father for Katy taking too much money.