Mara Scribner
6/24/10
In the story Everything That Rises Must Converge that character Julian has a mother that seems to be stuck in the past. The two are white, lower middle-class people whose past relatives owned slaves and a plantation. The mother still believes that black people are somehow lower than her and deserve no respect. She could meet a perfectly well-educated and classy black lawyer and she would still have absolutely no respect for him. The son, Julian, is embarrassed by the views of his mother, and he does everything he can to prove this to her, including striking up a conversation with a black man. In the end of the story, the mother tries to give a young black boy a penny against Julian’s wishes. Julian knows that the mother of the black boy would be angry because at the time black people were trying to prove their own. Taking gifts and charity from a white person would only emphasize the white supremacy. In the beginning of the story I emphasize with Julian only because I am often embarrassed by my mother’s behavior and views. However, I grew more sympathetic with the mother as the story progressed only because she always seemed so positive and hopeful even though her son always shot her down. This story presents acting a patronizing way to be bad. It also seems to frown upon treating your parents in a very disrespectful manner. Being disrespectful to one’s parents is a sin, which explains the symbolic turn of events at the end of the story when the son finally feels guilt for his actions. When it comes to politics I believe this story really shows the relationship between white and black people after the slave years. Black people didn’t want the help of white people because they wanted to make their way on their own, so that they may take full credit for their accomplishments. I believe this story’s purpose is to unveil the many imperfections of the human race. Both the mother and Julian believed themselves to be correct in each situation, but in truth they were both flawed. The mother was unable to realize that society quickly changes and that one must change with it, or else risk being stuck in the past forever. Julian believes that social conduct and social change are all in the one’s mind and that intellectual success is the most important success someone can have. However, Julian didn’t attend a very nice school, nor did he even continue with his intellectual dreams of becoming a writer. Every human being is flawed in their own way, but many people fail in seeing their own mistakes.
Where is the Voice Coming From is a story of a white man that decides to take the law into his own hands. He has a hatred for successful black people, such as Meredith Roland. His hatred is so strong that he commits one of the worst sins; murder. The white man does not believe he is committing a sin or a crime. He believes that he is doing his race a political justice by killing this man and repressing the black community even farther. What he doesn’t realize at the time of his crime is that this event would fuel a fire in many black people’s hearts that would make their movement come on even stronger. This story represents black intelligence and success to be bad. Black people making an effort to prosper and live the ‘American Dream’ is deemed as bad in a white supremist society.
In each of the stories sin plays a very crucial role. Every main character sinned over the course of the story in some way. Julian disrespected his mother to the extreme, his mother had no respect for a whole race of people, and the white supremist man in the latter story was a cold-hearted murderer. Politics also played a very important role in both stories. The mother of the first story was stuck in the past and could not keep up with social and political change, irritating Julian. The white supremist man did a political ‘favor’ for his people, or so he thought. Both stories showed the troubles that the white people had during a time of social change that brought on much political, social, and religious corruption.