A Review of Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

A Very Long Introduction

In high school, I remember reading Wuthering Heights and absolutely loving it. I couldn’t really explain why I enjoyed it so much when many of my peers detested the extreme nature of the characters and their bizarre, twisted relationships. They complained of the confusing Catherines and the miserable atmosphere and because I agreed with them, I couldn’t defend why I liked it so much. Perhaps the story is comparable to a long-running TV drama that most people are tired of, but some find still enjoyable. But to reduce Wuthering Heights to just its surface level plot overlooks the oddities that define it as a compelling Gothic novel.

It was finally in college, when I took a course on Gothic literature, that I finally understood why I enjoyed this book so much. I fell in love with Gothic as a complex genre, one often testing the boundaries of gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic status. The big question we would discuss in class was whether the stories we read seemed to subvert or conform to traditional social beliefs. Of course, being an English class, there was never a clear answer, but it was in the various readings and perspectives that added to my appreciation of each story we read.

In Gothic, particularly feminine Gothic, there are certain tropes that are common: an ominous mansion, locked or forbidden rooms, ghosts, a brooding husband (sometimes a sort of Byronic hero, sometimes an antagonist), and the list goes on. While it might seem like these elements make Gothic formulaic and repetitive, the genre has inspired many interesting narratives. Each novel or short story we read used these common tropes to spin a unique and engaging tale, a tale that would contradict others, that would contradict itself.

By no means did one class make me an expert on the topic. Rather, the course turned me into a Gothic enthusiast and I now have a new appreciation for and perspective of film and writing that draws from the genre. Because I love Gothic, I love seeing how authors expand it and challenge its tropes. Much of the Gothic I read featured white heroines in an 1800s British setting. As much as I enjoyed the stories, there wasn’t much diversity in the characters and if there were people of color, they were in the background used perhaps as props of vague racism. So when I first saw Mexican Gothic in a Book of the Month recommendation, I was immediately excited. The story takes place in 1950s Mexico, in which a young socialite attempts to save her cousin from the grasps of the English family she married into. This seemed like everything I was looking for in a modern spin of Gothic and I was glad to see the use of Gothic tropes, while pushing the characters and setting to new areas not typically seen in the genre.

Unfortunately, I have to admit that I had a very difficult time reading this book. So difficult a time, that I felt the desire to write this whole essay of a review to convey my conflicted feelings towards this book. I think I have to evaluate it from two separate lenses: story and writing style. I feel the need to divide the review in this way because I do have a different opinion on each of them.

Gothic and Post-Colonialism (Not Spoiler-Free)

Silvia Moreno-Garcia utilizes Gothic themes to express the lingering horrors of colonization and persistent Eurocentric egoism in a way that is genuinely terrifying. The initial intrigue of the cousin draws you in and the mystery of the mansion keeps you reading.

Noemí Taboada, the protagonist, is a pampered socialite, comfortable in the routine of her lifestyle filled with social events and college courses. Although she faces certain limitations because of her expected roles as a woman, she finds a fair amount of control over her image and decisions. Noemí is well-educated in many topics, including social etiquette, English, and anthropology, her latest interest. I like Noemí as a protagonist because she is bold and flawed, yet self-aware. She isn’t always likable and she doesn’t learn from every mistake, but I think that makes her more realistic.

One day Noemí receives a strange letter from her semi-recently married cousin, Catalina, which spurs her to leave Mexico City and visit the isolated English mansion near the small town of El Triunfo. Immediately, Noemí finds the mansion unsettling. Its name, the High Place, describes the way it towers over the town on this hill, as if looking down upon the people living there. The Doyle family made careful considerations to preserve their English identity in Mexico, bringing English workers and even English soil to settle in the land. In the High Place’s prime as a magnificent silver mine, it exploited the labor of the townsfolk of El Triunfo, making a careful point to show that they were superior and separated. But now the mansion’s old, decaying walls and moldy utilities are a sign of former glory. The mine is closed and with no workers, there is no cash flow. All that is left is a belief in its superiority, though the rest of the townsfolk view it as a piece of history, one that cannot be easily ignored or removed.

Noemí finds that all her socialite training did not prepare her for how to interact with the people of the High Place. Her charms and fluency in English only get her so far and she finds herself feeling like quite an outsider in the family’s rules. On the first night, the head of the house, an old, ghastly man named Howard Doyle, takes an interest in Noemí and questions her about her opinions on anthropology, particularly eugenics. He leers at her while she tries to argue against his racist and belittling remarks on “superior and inferior types.”

Much of the book is a slow build up of mysteries around death, murder, and curses that Noemí tries to piece together. I’m not particularly bothered by slow burn horror, though as a note, the book really picks up in the last third. The cause of the nightmares and trauma surrounding the family is the most interesting and detailed part of the novel. There is a fungi that grows in the High Place that has properties similar to immortality. Each person that lives there inhales spores that further connects them to each other and to the house. They refer to this fungi as “the gloom.” It is why ghosts of former Doyles still reside in the High Place, haunting the dreams of the living members. It is why Howard Doyle is ancient, yet persevering, in his pustule and decomposing state. Some of the Doyles, like Howard and his son Virgil, thrive off the controlling nature of the fungi, while others, like the nephew Francis, have simply resigned to it. Because Noemí and Catalina have also lived in the High Place for some time, they have become connected to the gloom. Howard wants to use this as a way of trapping them in the family, which can no longer survive exclusively off of English Doyle blood.

I was initially worried that the twist was the Doyles were vampires. There is a reference to one of the members using silver bullets to kill the others, so I feared it would fall into some cliché monster plot. However, the gloom is an infinitely more original idea and is executed well. This horrific, man-eating fungi is the true perpetrator of the colonizer and eugenics mindset. The Doyles used it to feed off the local miners, working them to death for profit, but selected Catalina and Noemí as the desirable candidates to include in the family due to their closeness to Eurocentric beauty and culture. Once infected, Catalina and Noemí cannot escape the gloom because they too, whether they want to or not, possess certain privileges that are products of post-colonial Mexico. The gloom makes them want to succumb to the wishes of Howard and Virgil, to give in to the farce of English superiority and conform to the extent that they can. In the end, Noemí burns the High Place down in a dramatic fire and escapes with Catalina and Francis. And though they destroy the gloom, they continue to carry a part of it with them, fearing its regrowth, when the dominance of the colonizer’s mind will once again cage them.

Writing, Symbols, and Subtleties

As much as I liked the story, I had a hard time getting through this novel due to the writing style. I think a major weakness is that it is told from third person limited perspective of Noemí’s point of view. That isn’t inherently bad writing, lots of great stories are told from third person limited, yet Noemí is written in such a way that removes all subtlety from the text. The book is written to guide the reader to very particular conclusions. Sometimes this works, though when it is done so frequently, it becomes painfully noticeable. When there’s a symbol, Noemí tells you what to think of that symbol, or when there’s an analogy, Noemí explains to you exactly what she means by that analogy.

I noticed this when in the first several chapters, Noemí makes references to Gothic novels and explicitly states that her bedroom looks Gothic. I didn’t mind that Noemí and Catalina read Gothic novels, but I felt that it was too literal and a little lazy to have Noemí say that the house looks Gothic. The descriptions were doing a good job in setting that up without that extra nudge. I initially brushed this off, but it continues throughout the entire book.

A lot of the critical thinking a reader might do is simply explained by Noemí. When Noemí sees the ouroboros, the Doyle’s family crest, she makes sure to point it out at every opportunity. Thus, when there is a moment that feels cyclical, she’ll describe it as feeling cyclical like the ouroboros. At one point, Noemí sees a picture snake in Virgil’s and thinks it is like the one in the Garden of Eden. Prior to these moments, the writing will be engaging. Silvia Moreno-Garcia does a great job creating atmospheric settings and vivid images that you can really see what Noemí experiences in the High Place. However, this will be quickly ruined by Noemí analyzing and explaining the patterns to you so that you are not engaged with the writing at all. I think the worst moment of my reading experience was when Noemí, Catalina, and Virgil are escaping the High Place and find the mummified corpse of one of Howard’s former wives. Her face is permanently molded in a scream of agony and Noemí thinks, “She is the snake biting its tail.”

This made my reading experience rather miserable. Of course, this doesn’t mean you need to fully trust what Noemí thinks or believes, but it felt as though the author didn’t trust the audience to come to those conclusions themselves. I’ve seen a lot of reviews complaining about the repetition, though I think the issue comes from how it is executed. Motifs are not bad, but this book took those motifs to another extreme. It felt like there was no subtlety. Every chapter readers had to be reminded of the ouroboros or the fungi to the point that it didn’t feel as though it enhanced the story in any way.

Conclusion

I’m not really one to intentionally quit reading a book. I’m a completionist and finishing a book feels like reaching a goal. However, I nearly quit reading this book due to frustration with the writing. It was only when I finished it that I could step away and think about the story separately, appreciating it in a way that I couldn’t really while I was reading it. Would I recommend this book? I’m not sure, though I lean a little towards no. Perhaps your reading experience will be like mine. Painful, but then thoughtful at the end. Perhaps your reading experience will be mostly positive since there are many people who enjoyed this novel. I’m glad I finished it, but I wouldn’t do it again. Somehow I feel the desire to reread Wuthering Heights to cope.

Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner

The introduction to Flannery O’Connor describes her work as “Grotesque, Catholic, Southern” (2773), which seems to perfectly embody her short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” It’s a strange tale that possesses both comedic and horrific elements. Perhaps hearing it performed would evoke more of those comedic aspects, since most of the story I felt deeply disturbed. Towards the end of the tale, the poor family meets the Misfit, the escaped serial killer. The grandmother attempts to plead for their lives by evoking his empathy and calling him a good man, but he says to her, “Does it seem right to you, lady, that one is punished a heap and another ain’t punished at all?” (2786). He became a villain, since that is what he was labeled as and he concluded that was all he could ever be. Society had decided that he was part of the heap to be punished, so he lost his good and indulged in crime. He represents what has gone wrong in Catholicism. The grandmother begs him to pray and to look for the goodness, but he has already chose this criminal path as a result of the wrongdoing he faced. He’s an exaggeration of the downfall of humanity in America.

William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” is another story of the corruption in the hearts of mankind. Colonel Sartoris defends his father’s arson in court, despite almost revealing the truth. His father forces him to remember being loyal to the family with a hard slap in the face. But the father cannot take responsibility for his actions and tries to burn the barn of his family’s new workplace. Sartoris runs away, but after hearing the shots that take his father’s life, thinks, “‘He was brave! He was! He was in the war! He was in Colonel Sartoris’ cav’ry!’ not knowing that his father had gone to that war a private in the fine old European sense, wearing no uniform, admitting the authority of and giving fidelity to no man or army or flag, going to war as Malbrouck himself did: for booty–it meant nothing and less than nothing to him if it were enemy booty or his own” (14). His father had always lived in a selfish, dishonorable way, thinking it was the only way for him to survive. In the same way that the Misfit felt he had to deliver some twisted form of Justice for himself, the father also acted in his own self-interest. Sartoris acted as a sort of moral compass, like the grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” yet he tries to rationalize the father’s crimes in end. It is difficult to tell who readers are supposed to empathize with in the end: Sartoris, who betrayed his family, or Mr. Snopes, who burned his responsibilities away. To Faulkner and O’Connor, this is the complex and disturbed state of the nation. The people in it are hardened and the goodness dwindled down to a selfish clinging to life.

“Becoming Visible”

What does it mean to find visibility in America? Adrienne Rich’s poem “Diving Into the Wreck” describes a person’s dive into the deep ocean to find a shipwreck. The dive is chilling, this underwater world is vastly different from the world above. The speaker says, “This is the place. / And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair / streams black, the merman in his armored body” (l. 75-77). As intimidating as the deep sea dive appears initially, there is something about the wreck’s power that draws the speaker to it. These lines portray the ambiguity of the water and the way in which the speaker can explore and exist beyond the boundaries of traditional gender roles. The poem may not be entirely about gender, but in particular, the speaker finds a comfort in this undefined space. “This is the place” is a statement with assurance that they found what they were looking for, that they are what they were look for.

Audre Lorde’s “Power” is an intense and moving poem about the injustices within the American criminal justice system. Its message speaks strongly and loudly towards issues that still prevail today. In this piece, Lorde looks to claim her own power and agency:

I have not been able to touch the destruction
within me.
But unless I learn to use
the difference between poetry and rhetoric
my power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold (l. 43-47)

The prevalence of violence and abuse against black bodies by white systems impacts Lorde’s own search for power. In the poem, she is suffering from the wounds of her children. When the officer killed the young black boy, he killed Lorde’s motherhood as well. It becomes easy to fall into a desire for revenge and destruction, which she acknowledges. In that destruction is strength and power, yet she fears it. It will poison others and herself, so through this poem she searches for the line between true power and violent desires.

Allen Ginsberg

“Howl” is an intense literary experience and an even more moving performance by the author himself, Allen Ginsberg. He dedicated it to his friend Carl Solomon, but it was something that needed to be brought to the public as well. The poem touches on issues of race and sexuality, taking the readers through these personal, vivid and raunchy moments. Ginsberg aims to shock readers, make them laugh, make them cry. One stanza that stood out to me (besides the bluntly sexual ones) was “who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and / walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of / Chinatown soup alleyways & firetrucks, not even one free / beer” (l. 164-167). While reading this long poem, this stanza reminds the reader of this strange voice behind the poem. It is almost as like someone telling a funny story to a friend and trying to reassure them about the authenticity of their bizarre experience. It is tragic and absurd that somehow we cannot help but laugh at. Besides the graphic images, this poem uses explicit language as a part of its art and rebellious nature: “dream of life / a nightmare, bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon, / with mother finally ******” (l. 211-213). At another point in the poem, Ginsberg spells out the word “fucked” while referencing gay sex, but here it is self-censored, as if trying to tone down its punch with respect to this mother. The thought of the reader’s own mother might appear when reading this stanza and how taboo it is to think and talk about all kinds of sex. Ginsberg takes that taboo and throws it out into the open. Sex is wild and beautiful, like this nightmarish dream he describes. It must be seen, it must be heard.

When I first read this poem, I was lost. In my head I was constantly searching for the meaning behind each cryptic stanza and how they all flowed together. I wondered what was so “American” about this text and why it was so highly revered. But after listening to Ginsberg’s performance, I understood much more. Its blunt and explicit nature exposes America for its real face. In society, we constantly censor ourselves, but this poem forces us to look at America in the face. Its full of life, death, sex, tragedy, racism, homophobia, love, and hate. It’s all of these at once, an many more, condensed into this individual, yet universal American experience.

If Beale Street Could Talk 2

I’ve been thinking about the meaning behind this title. If Beale Street could talk, what would it say? Would it protect Fonny and Tish from the racism that walks over it? Would it support people like Officer Bell who represent the flaws of America and its segregated justice? Would it mind its own business as the world passes by?

Perhaps, the truth is that Beale Street possesses all of these different voices. Still, in the face of corruption underneath unjust white institutions, the characters share these intimate moments of humanity. When Tish first meets Fonny’s lawyer Hayward, she is skeptical of his abilities. As a married white, middle-aged, middle-class man, he lives in a society catered towards him. However, taking the case seriously, he says he has been met with contempt by his peers. Tish still doubts his credibility until he asks her to flash him a smile for Fonny: “I smiled, and he smiled, and something really human happened between us, for the first time” (97). They share this connection through a simple gesture that eases Tish’s worries. She realizes that he is concerned about them and cares about their Tish and Fonny’s relationship. From these struggles and hardships rises a simple yet meaningful trust. Tish experienced this earlier as well when she and Fonny rent a loft from Levy. She recalls how “when Fonny got into trouble, he did something very strange, and, I think, very beautiful. He called me and he said that I could have the money back, anytime I wanted it” (133). This gives Tish warmth and hope when it is easy to lose faith in mankind because of her circumstances. It reminds her of the kindness that fights off the pressures of racism and sexism. These survivors recognize other survivors. When a man harasses Tish and the situation escalates to a dangerous one, the shop owner comes out to defend her and Fonny. When Officer Bell leaves, the woman “stares into my eyes…’You have a good man,’ she says….I look at her. She touches my face” (139). Despite the overwhelming malice of Officer Bell and the oppression of the criminal justice system, there is a lot of love in this world. These moments of humanity fight to triumph over the bleak ones. Baldwin shows that this is the beautiful voice of Beale Street, of America.

If Beale Street Could Talk 1

If Beale Street Could Talk is regarded as one of James Baldwin’s best novels. It is a story of love, intimacy, and tragedy. Fonny is falsely imprisoned on charges of rape while his pregnant girlfriend Tish struggles to get him out. The story is told entirely from Tish’s perspective in a sort of stream of consciousness from her nineteen-year old mind. On Tish’s side, her family is very supportive of her relationship with Fonny, while Fonny’s family is more conflicting and dysfunctional. In particular, Fonny’s mother embodies the toxicity and hypocrisy of the church. His mother feels obligated to provide a generic form of care for Fonny, but she really dedicates her time and energy to the church and praying for her family, in particular the men who are not religious. Fonny describes how the religion creates a bizarre dynamic between his mother and father: “And he’d slap her, hard, loud. And she’d say, Oh, Lord, help me to bear my burden. And he’d say, Here it is baby, you going to bear it all right, I know it” (17). It is almost like a form of roleplay and a pattern that the two have fallen into in their intimacy. Their sex is a mesh of violence and religion and Fonny’s father is like the seductive devil, while the mother is the pure angel. Or at least, that is what she imagines in her mind. She keeps up the act of her dedication to God to mask her own sinful thoughts and desires. Tish feels the facade of the church when she and Fonny attend service one Sunday. It was a horrifying experience that scared the two of them into never returning. The love that the church gave was not for them. Tish thinks, “Only, when I first had to go and see him in the Tombs, and walked up those steps and into those halls, it was just like walking into church” (26). In the same way that prison is isolating and destructive, church is too. The church created people like Fonny’s mother and sisters who believe in their superior sense of morality and existence. They have trapped themselves in this faulty system which takes their love away from their family and turns it into selfish desires for the sake of being spiritually saved. Baldwin makes sure to point out the flaws of the church and the way in which it produces these robotic humans clouded by judgmental thoughts of others with no room for self-reflection.

Beat Movement Poets

Often times when I read poetry, I wonder how the author could have thought to write these words in this order with this spacing and punctuation and style. Poetry is intimidating and we often search for some deeper meaning that the poem has to offer. It’s abstract concepts must be hiding something from the simple-minded audience, but the true literary scholars can derive meaning from the use of a single dash. And as much as reading poetry can feel like this, these feelings are not really true. Poetry is about evoking emotions and sometimes that emotion is confusion and other times it is admiration or interest without fully comprehending the poem. I felt this way in particular by Gary Snyder’s “Riprap” (p. 3003) and Robert Creeley’s “I Know a Man” (p. 3035). Snyder’s poem “Riprap” is almost like a philosophical journey about the bizarre game of life. A riprap is apparently “a cobble of stone laid on steep slick rock to make a trail for horses in the mountains” according to the poet. It sounds like it would be a rock skipping across the water or tapping against other rocks as it falls down a cliff. This motif of rocks and solidity appear throughout the poem: “Lay down these words / Before your mind like rocks. / placed solid, by hands / In choice of place” (l. 1-4). Words are like rocks, or even game pieces (primarily because he mentions the game Go), that are chosen by the player. There’s something almost God-like or enlightened about the image these lines evoke. It is as if the reader has great power and control over the placement of these stones. I love the line “Granite: ingrained” (l. 21), which has a great sound to it, as if the readers are a part of this mineral, these thoughts, these words, “these poems, people” (l. 11). It continues “with torment of fire and weight / Crystal and sediment linked hot / all change, in thoughts, / As well as things” (l. 22-25). There is a feeling of connection between the tangibleness of rocks, things and the intangible thoughts. Thoughts can be clear like crystals or grainy and mixed like sediment. The fire and weight are necessary to switch from one form to the other. Words are like rocks, solid and heavy and dynamic. I suppose there’s something deeply American in all this rock talk.

The other poem that struck me was Creeley’s “I Know a Man.” The first line is striking in its use of “sd” instead of “said.” Its exclusion of the essential vowels makes its form particularly unconventional and rebellious. It is repeated three times throughout the poem, as if it desires attention. The speaker is addressing his friend John, “which was not his / name” (l. 4-5), another strange detail to this seemingly simple poem. However, the most bizarre line comes from when the speaker says, “the darkness sur- / rounds us, what / can we do against, / it, or else” (l. 5-8). There seems to be a desperation in the speaker’s tone, talking to his friend John who isn’t really John. It almost feels like one of those “The End is Nigh” sort of speeches since John brushes him off. There is some ominous chaos that seems to surround them people at all times that we manage to navigate through in different ways. Perhaps it is necessary to ignore the chaos, since by acknowledging the darkness will cause them to be lost in it. The titles “I Know a Man” is universal, as if everyone knows a John and that John (whatever his actual name may be) is the navigator or guidance through life. And maybe John is or isn’t right, but he is some sort of necessary force.

A View from the Bridge

Arthur Miller’s play A View from the Bridge shows the audience a destruction of an unconventional family unit in the midst of forbidden passions. Beatrice and Eddie raised their niece Catherine after her mother’s passing. As Catherine grows older and into her womanhood, Eddie has a difficult time adapting to the change. He acts as an overprotective parent, constantly nitpicking at her clothes or appearance, though really trying to mask his attraction to her. When beautiful, blonde Rodolpho arrives in their house, he becomes Eddie’s rival for Catherine’s attention. Eddie is not ready to let Catherine go and insists that there is something wrong with Rodolpho. In a seen where Catherine and Rodolpho get up to dance, Eddie says, “It’s wonderful. He sings, he cooks, he could make dresses…I mean like me–I can’t cook, I can’t sing, I can’t make dresses, so I’m on the waterfront” (49). The other characters are not bothered by Rodolpho and find his skills valuable as a worker and husband. However, Eddie and the other seamen find Rodolpho particularly feminine and call him “Paper Doll” to emphasize his fragility. Rodolpho’s feminine attributes clearly disrupt Eddie’s feelings of manliness and security. He constantly tries to point out Rodolpho’s “off” behavior to Catherine and in this scene brags about his own inability to perform those tasks to assert his masculinity. It is as if he is also saying that Catherine should find these features in himself attractive, though he really is showing how he cannot take care of others. He does rely on Catherine to perform these tasks for him and her obedience to him prevents her from being able to grow up and apart from him. However, the dynamic between Rodolpho and Catherine is not perfect either. He calls her “little girl” as if he also babies her. Perhaps it is endearing, but it parallels the way Eddie treats Catherine as a child, as if that is all she can ever be in both familial and romantic relationships.

What is most disturbing may be how Eddie’s attraction to Catherine is not entirely one-sided. Beatrice catches on to their strange affection towards each other, which is why she encourages Catherine to leave the house. Catherine is her competition for Eddie’s attention, which is a battle she is losing, as seen when Eddie rejects her desire for intimacy. After Eddie objects to Catherine’s relationship with Rodolpho, she begins to feel her own doubts about it. Catherine claims it is because Eddie thinks she’s a baby, but Beatrice counters, “Because you think you’re a baby. I told you fifty times already, you can’t act the way you act. You still walk around in front of him in your slip…Or like you sit on the edge of the bathtub talkin’ to him when he’s shavin’ in his underwear” (37). Catherine attempts to weakly defend those actions saying that she forgot or she had to tell Eddie something, but just in the way that Eddie feels Rodolpho isn’t right, Beatrice sees that there is something wrong about Eddie and Catherine’s relationship. Somehow they are extremely conscious of their familial relationship to one another, but they act in these intimate and unguarded ways around each other. Beatrice, as well as Alfieri, try to hint at the unhealthy attractions the two have. Catherine acts like a wife to Eddie, knowingly or unknowingly, and pushes Beatrice aside. And although Catherine has feelings for Rodolpho, she can’t let go of her feelings for Eddie. She is perhaps more in denial about these affections, but they are clear in the way she frames her decisions around Eddie’s opinions and her desire to please him. A View from the Bridge skillfully portrays this forbidden affair that Eddie and Catherine are battling in their own ways. By marrying Rodolpho, Catherine was escaping the clutches of her uncle, but her own reluctance to leave as well.

Miller, Arthur. A View from the Bridge. Web. <https://www.sfponline.org/uploads/70/AViewFromtheBridge.pdf>

Of Mice and Men

John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men seemed like a plain tale of two oddball men in search of land and money. I was swept up in George and Lennie’s dream to buy a farm with rabbits to the point where I did not believe in any other ending, despite all the hints and foreshadowing placed throughout the story. When George and Lennie begin to settle down in their new workplace, they begin to make plans to make this dream real. One night while the rest of the men are out, Lennie visits Crooks, the one black man on the farm, to find some company and pet the puppies. Lennie tells Crooks about the land he and George want to buy and the rabbits he’ll take care of. Crooks responds, “Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their head. They all the time talkin’ about it, but it’s jus’ in their head” (74). This comes right after Candy tells George and Lennie about all the money he has to help them buy the farm. They are all riding on a high of finally achieving this dream, which was sort of the American Dream before it became about money and materialism. This dream was about manliness and living off the land. Yet this dream was unobtainable all the same. The dream eats men alive and they die chasing after this idea that with enough hard work, they’ll finally become the owner of their own lives. Crooks is really the only one who sees through this façade to the sad truth about. He recognizes as well that as a black man, he does not have this chance to dream like white men. I was surprised at the way the book portrayed Crooks. He was slightly devilish in teasing Lennie, but he was an empathetic character. Readers are meant to feel the shock when Curley’s wife threatens to have him lynched. All of his actions have a severe cost. As a response, Crooks retreats into his corner of solitude, far away from the toxic dream.

Yet the dream all along wasn’t really about owning land or rabbits. For George and Lennie, it was about escaping the society which looked down upon them. The men note how it’s unusual that they travel together, but deep in the hearts of the other characters, they are lonely. And they are lonely because masculinity told them to survive alone. That’s what George taught Lennie made them different from these other folks. In the end, Lennie exclaims, “We got each other, that’s what, that gives a hoot in hell about us” (104). The farm dream was what kept the two men together as friends. They cared deeply about each other and this care spread to the men around them, which wanted to live in their manly isolation. Other men were swept up in this friendship, like Candy and Crooks. Yet the end where George has to kill Lennie, just as Candy let his old dog die, was an example of how softness and love cannot exist in this society, where the men are hard and loveless.

Langston Hughes and Claude McKay

Langston Hughes and Claude McKay are both renowned Harlem Renaissance poets. Their poetry critiques America’s racist and brutal flaws, seeking to create a society in which folks can live in peace with one another. At the heart of these messages is a love for the country and a desire to see it improved. In Hughes’ poem “The Same” (p. 2085-6), the speaker describes this feeling of being treated the same everywhere. It doesn’t pertain to just American society, but to the exploitation of black bodies around the world. The poem ends with “Unite to raise the blood-red flag that / Never will come down!” (l. 48-49). The blood-red flag represents the hardships and abuse, but the way that it stands proudly at the end shows this reclaiming of the areas that worked to oppress them. There is a sense of pride and unity between the black folks that shed their blood to create the foundations of these lands. And this flag is proof that they are the foundations of these land. Hughes goes more into critiquing American society in his poem “Freedom Train” (p. 2089-90). America, known as the land of the free, is represented as this segregated Freedom Train. The speaker asks “Can a coal black man drive the Freedom Train? / Or am I still a porter on the Freedom Train? / Is there ballot boxes on the Freedom Train?” (l. 18-20). Though the country boasts about its great power and opportunity, freedom is a resource available only to a select few. The coal black man represents the black folks who literally fuel the train but are not allowed to run or lead it. Their work in keeping the train running goes unappreciated and unacknowledged. And this question of a ballot box on the train directly relates to the false ideas of suffrage passed by the 19th Amendment. The right to vote did not prevent the rise of racist Jim Crow laws, which aimed to prevent black voices from being heard by the government. The Freedom Train is misleading, yet the speaker does not believe it is completely broken or dysfunctional. There is still hope that it can be fixed to live up to its name.

Claude McKay similarly wrote about the injustices in society and challenged the idea of who is American. In his poem “The Harlem Dancer” (p. 2161), the speaker describes a young woman dancing in the streets of Harlem as folks pass by voyeuristically watching her: “But looking at her falsely-smiling face, I knew her self was not in that strange place” (l. 12-14). This poem reminds me a lot of the opening scene of Invisible Man where a young woman dances through a crowd of men, grabbing at her as if they wish to tear her apart. She wears a similar beautiful, yet empty smile, that reveals her disapproving feelings towards the audience. McKay captures the mystery and the sadness of this dancer’s story as people lustfully watch her body without a care for the woman inside it. McKay’s poem “America” (p. 2163) had a similar feeling to Hughes’ “I, too.” They both aim to include black folks in the American identity. McKay exclaims, “I love this cultured hell that tests my youth! / Her vigor flows like tides into my blood, / Giving me strength erect against her hate” (l. 4-6). In many ways, this country actively works against him. He does not deny its flaws or its ugly abuses, yet he still loves it. He is this country that hates him and he wants to fight and embrace it. What does it mean to be American, to live in the land of the free? I think Hughes and McKay show that America, with all its problems and ugliness, is a beautiful place as well. America is not just whiteness, but this radiant blackness that cannot be subdued. Even now, we struggle with this strict idea of white America, but there is much more color and beauty present.