A Red Line in the Sun

When I watched the video about Redlining that Ms. Valentino assigned us, I instantly made a connection to the ending of A Raisin in the Sun.  The reason I made this connection is because Ruth says "the notes ain't but a hundred and twenty-five a month" (Hansberry 140).  This is an obvious reference to the rent they had to pay for the new house, and is roughly similar to the rent the people interviewed in the video had to pay.  (Even though the Younger family did have to pay for a lower fee.)  However, it would suggest a probable ending for the Youngers that does not have them "BOMBED" in "Clybourne Park" (Hansberry 102).  The Youngers may actually get to live in their new home with little violence, but may still suffer from extreme poverty.

I know that Hansberry did intend a white mob to attack the Youngers in the original version of the play, but the ending she did use wasn't quite specific in implying this event.  While Karl Linder did tell the family of how desperate the white people in Clybourne Park wanted to keep black people out of their neighborhood, it does not guarantee that they will kill the Youngers.  There is the possibility of the white people moving out of Clybourne Park.  This would, of course, result in more empty houses, and allow for even more black families to move into the neighborhood.  These families perhaps may need to pay an even higher fee than the Youngers' for their new houses, and eventually suffer from intense poverty.  This does not mean the Youngers are better off, since their landlord could simply increase the fee for renting the house.  As a result, Clybourne Park would become a lot like North Lawrence.  Perhaps Hansberry purposely allows this alternate fate of the Youngers to be interpreted from her play, since segregation is a major theme in A Raisin in the Sun.  After all, redlining is a strong example of segregation.

Why does Fitzgerald Include Racism in his novels?

John, from The Diamond As Big As The Ritz, was put into "a state of terror" when he found out that Braddock murdered his guests (Fitzgerald 99).  What I find that is very irritating is the John did not feel this when he first saw the "negroes" as slaves (Fitzgerald 79).  In fact, it may prove that John could be a racist, or at least indifferent to blacks.  Unfortunately, I cannot find enough textual evidence to prove this theory.  So instead of pondering on if Fitzgerald or John is a racist, I will try my best to explain why F. Scott Fitzgerald includes these indirect references to racism.

 It is important to remember that there was plenty of racists that existed in the Roaring 20's.  There was even a famous racist organization that had gained a lot of power during this decade, which is, of course, the Klu Klux Klan.  While Fitzgerald did try to focus both The Great Gatsby and The Diamond As Big As The Ritz (which was actually written for Fitzgerald's pleasure) on social class, it seems he couldn't avoid including racism simply because it was a big issue at the time.  I actually think Fitzgerald was tempted to write a story that addresses racism, but he just was probably afraid of getting assassinated by the Klu Klux Klan or by a racist (or anti-racist) mob.  So he vaguely includes racism in his novels as a result.  (To be clear, I do not know for sure if this is true.)

Overall, I do not think that it matters if Fitzgerald is a racist or not.  Racism does not seem to be the main point of his novels. (I am referring to The Great Gatsby and The Diamond As Big As The Ritz).  As I stated before, Fitzgerald's main purpose in his two stories involved social classes.  So I think that issue would be more vital (and easier) in analyzing some of Fitzgerald's texts.

My Favorite passage from The Great Gatsby

Note: The following post uses the author's opinions.

The following passage is from page 88 of The Great Gatsby:

"I walked out the back way-just as Gatsby had when he had made his nervous circuit of the house half an hour before-and ran for a huge black knotted tree, whose massed leaves made a fabric against the rain.  Once more it was pouring, and my irregular lawn, well-shaved by Gatsby's gardener, abounded in small muddy swamps and prehistoric marshes.  There was nothing to look at from under the tree except Gatsby's enormous house, so I stared at it, like Kant at his church steeple, for half an hour.  A brewer had built it early in the "period" craze a decade before, and there was a story that he'd agreed to pay five years' taxes on all the neighboring cottages if the owners would have their roofs thatched with straw.  Perhaps their refusal took the heart out of his plan to Found a Family-he went into an immediate decline.  His children sold his house with the black wreath still on the door.  Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry." (Fitzgerald 88)

 Nick is obviously thinking about how Gatsby's house was built in the 1910s (since he mentioned "a decade before").  What I want to point out though is that the house was built by a "brewer" rather than anyone else.  At first, I thought the brewer was a cook who just made soup to sell to his neighbors.  I later realized that the brewer could have actually created alcoholic drinks because "he went into an immediate decline".  This "decline" could have probably resulted from the 18th Amendment which started Prohibition.  It could also be inferred that the brewer was wealthy because he wanted "all the neighboring cottages...have their roofs thatched with straw."  Although the brewer "agreed to pay five years' taxes" for his neighbors, the "straw" is a symbol of poverty for the neighbors and how the brewer is richer, explaining why they refused the brewer's offer.  There is also noticeable similarities between Gatsby and the brewer because they are both wealthy and made money from alcohol.  The similarities perhaps reveal how Gatsby's mindset is stuck in the past.  (Just to clarify, the brewer is not the same person as Gatsby because the brewer had children while Gatsby didn't).  Nick had actually compared himself to "Kant" (a famous philosopher from the Enlightenment) because he makes a generalization of "Americans" at the end of the passage.  This generalization could be referring to Tom and Daisy, who planed to stay at East Egg like "serfs", but moved out at the end of the book as "peasantry."  (In case you didn't know, the difference between peasants and serfs is that peasants are allowed to move away from their land while serfs are forced by their lords to stay on their land.  Also, I am not saying that Tom and Daisy are poor because I referred to them as peasants, they are obviously wealthy.)