CLASS 6EWRT 1B

Exam 1: Vocab and Terms

Discussion: Hughes: "Who's Passing for

Who?"

Juda Bennett’s Reading of Hughes

Morrison: “Recitatif”

Comparing works that we have read.

AGENDA

TERMS EXAM 1

You have 15

minutes to

complete the

exam.

Death Penalty

Take ten minutes to discuss

Hughes’s "Who's Passing for

Who?” and Morrison’s

“Recitatif.”

GROUP MEETING

Caleb Johnson (social worker)

The “Three dark bohemians” (artists)

The “red-haired man from Iowa” Mr.

Stubblefield

The Iowan Couple (school teachers)

The “brownskin man” and blonde

woman

CHARACTERS: “WHO IS PASSING FOR WHO?”

THE ARTISTS AND CALEB’S FRIENDS

IF YOUR QUESTION IS IN THE PRESENTATION, YOU GET

ONE PARTICIPATION POINT.

1. Q. Why did the black artists choose to ignore the color line? Were they really blind when it came to race?

2. Q: Why did the two [African American] writers and painter instantly assume without giving it much consideration that the three Iowans were bores? Is it simply because they were with Caleb Johnson?

3. Q: Why does Caleb hang out with white people instead of with his own race?

4. Q: Why is Caleb Johnson so intent on defending Mr. Stubblefield’s actions by explaining that, “Mr. Stubblefield is new to Harlem”

1. Q: Why did the white man stop defending the women when he found out that she was black ?

2. Q. Why did the woman who was mistaken to be white quickly forgot about her husband hitting her and turned her anger towards the man from Iowa?

3. Q: Would the man have stood up for the wife if the couple had been white instead of black?

4. Q: Why did the red haired man from Iowa and Caleb begin to act differently after the couple in the restaurant that were fighting revealed that they were both dark-skinned and not white?

5. Q: Why did the others questioned Mr. Stubblefield’s motives, when they themselves took no action to help the woman?

The red-haired man (Mr. Stubblefield) and chivalry

1. Question: Why does the tension in the party relax

when the couple from Idaho says they are passing?

2. Does being around your own race really change the

way you behave in public?

3. Q: Is it helpful to entertain these white guests if only

going to ridicule them? Do these interactions

undermine their community’s strength or are they only

creating a sideshow for outsiders to gawk?

The Party

1. Q: Why did the white couple tell the young men that they were black and

passing for white?

2. Q: Was the white couple passing or were they actually white passing as

mixed?

3. Q: What did the couple gain by lying and saying that they are African

American when they are actually white?

4. Why did the people of color find it so important to know whether or not those

people were white?

5. Q: Why would whites want to be black anyways, so they can be mistreated or

something?

6. Q: Is there an actual ethical difference between a disadvantaged group

passing as one with advantages versus an advantaged group passing as a

disadvantaged one?

But why?

WHO ELSE IS PASSING?

If so,

where do

you see

hints of it?

DO YOU READ QUEER

PASSING IN THIS

STORY?

Bennett’s Thesis: “With a sense of the interplay between voyeur and object, homophobe and homosexual, inside and outside, “Who's Passing For Who?" Interweaves the explicit theme of racial passing” with the buried theme of the closet.

BENNETT, JUDA. “MULTIPLE PASSINGS AND

THE DOUBLE DEATH OF LANGSTON HUGHES.”

HONOLULU: FALL 2000. VOL. 23, ISS. 4;

670-95.

Bennett writes,

[Assertion] The voice of the narrator is the key to discovering this buried, or closety, theme . Although critics have been surprisingly silent about the narrator's various and potential passings, there are several reasons for reading his character as false or at least layered. [Evidence] He admits, for example, to at least one performance when he states that "we dropped our professionally self-conscious 'Negro' manners... and kidded freely like colored folks do when there are no white folks around" (173). [Explanation] Although Langston Hughes is working within an African American tradition that has often explored the nature of performance as it relates to racial difference and insider/outsider communities, [Analysis] this story further layers that dynamic with other marks of difference.

[Evidence] Before the action begins, the prolix and witty

narrator introduces his friends and himself as "too broad-

minded to be bothered with questions of color." [Explanation]

This statement sets up the dramatic irony that positions the

narrator for his ultimate blunder: being fooled by the white

Iowans. [Analysis] Although the narrator's bohemian world is

meant to stand in contrast to the boring white folks from Iowa,

Hughes eventually reverses the roles. The Iowans prove to be

the tricksters, and the narrator must confront his own naiveté.

That the narrator could not see through the Iowans'

dissimulation is funny, ironic, interesting-but in the end,

not entirely believable.

What happens, though, if we read the narrator's bohemian

world as a homosocial world? [Assertion posed as a question]

[Evidence] When we divide the entire cast of characters into

single men and heterosexual couples, we discover that

racial passing only occurs within the heterosexual realm.

Not only does the Iowan couple pass, but so too does the only

other woman, half of the only other heterosexual couple in the

story. [Analysis] We might then see these racial passings as

deflecting attention from the narrator and his friends, who

become boring and unremarkable despite the initial flair with

which they are introduced. [Logical Conclusion] Racial passing

becomes a decoy, distracting our attention from the

performances of the bohemian bachelors.

[Assertion] Before Hughes initiates the drama of racial passing, he

comes dangerously close to revealing the "perverse" nature of

the narrator and his bachelor friends:

[Evidence] “You see, Caleb and his white friends, too, were all

bores. Or so we, who lived in Harlem's literary bohemia during the

"Negro Renaissance," thought. We literary ones considered

ourselves too broad-minded to be bothered with questions of color.

We liked people of any race who smoked incessantly, drank liberally,

wore complexion and morality as loose garments, and made fun of

anyone who didn't do likewise. We snubbed and high-hatted any

Negro or white luckless enough not to understand Gertrude Stein

....” (Hughes 170)

[Concession]Although the narrator assumes this affected tone,

his dandified attitude and the passing reference to Gertrude

Stein hardly mark him fully and definitively as a homosexual.

[Assertion] Nevertheless, the title, with its bad grammar calling

attention to itself, encourages speculation. Who is passing for

whom? [Explanation/Analysis] Surely the author would have

planted more and trickier trickster figures than the Iowans to fully

justify his title. Furthermore, the narrative has already schooled us

in the surprising fluidity of identity, and so readers are encouraged

to suspect more revelations and exposures.

[Concession] To those who would argue that the subject of passing lends

itself to this kind of wild and speculative reading-after all, everything is

performance, and everybody passes-I heartily agree. [Final Assertion] I

am finally arguing that in his autobiographies, poetry, fiction, and

drama, Hughes returned to the subject of passing throughout his

career because he was fascinated with identity as something unstable

and "queer." With their emphasis on compensation rather than loss,

questions rather than answers, the unknown rather than the known,

and curiosity rather than punishment, Hughes's writings on sexual

identity invite comparison to his exploration of racial passing.

QHQ Discussion: "Recitatif" Where do you think the author came up with the idea to name this story “Recitatif”?

Roberta Fisk

Twyla

Big Bozo: Orphanage Worker

Roberta’s mother:

Twyla’s mother: Mary

Maggie: Kitchen worker

James Benson (Twyla’s Husband)

Kenneth Norton (Roberta’s Husband)

Chinese Limo Driver

CHARACTERS

• St. Bonny’s

• Howard Johnsons

• Food Emporium

• School Picket Line

• Diner at Christmas

“RECITATIF”

SETTINGS

ST. BONNY’S

1. Q: How is reading a story from Twyla’s point of view still show the struggle of Roberta’s experience?

2. Q: Why would Twyla say “my mother won’t like you putting me in here” when Roberta was assigned as her roommate?

3. Q: Is Twyla’s mother on drugs? And why does Twyla use the word “kill” repeatedly when speaking about her mother?

4. Why didn’t Roberta’s mother want to shake hands with Twyla’s mother?

RACIAL AMBIGUITY: CLASS DIFFERENCE?

1. Q: What is the REAL race of Twyla and Roberta??????

2. Q: What message is Toni Morrison trying to send to the readers about stereotypes and race?

3. Q. Did the racial differences between the two girls affect their friendship at all?

4. Q: When do we learn to “see” race?5. What was the bigger conflict, class

difference or racism?

REUNIONS

1. Q: Why doesn’t Roberta greet Twyla enthusiastically

when Twyla runs into Roberta at the Howard

Johnson’s?

2. Q: Would Roberta have acted the same way to Twyla if she

wasn’t with the two other guys?

3. Q: Twyla meets Roberta another time while shopping for

groceries. Why is Roberta suddenly more open and close

to Twyla than she was before?

4. Why doesn’t Roberta help Twyla when the crowd rocks her

car?

5. Q: Why was Roberta trying to make Twyla feel guilty

for “kicking” Maggie even though Roberta knew

exactly that they both did nothing to Maggie?

MAGGIE

1. Why is their memory of Maggie so important in the story?

2. Q: Why does one of the girls think Maggie was black and another think she was white?

3. Q: Why did Roberta tell Twyla that they both had kicked

Maggie because she was a black lady who couldn’t talk? Was

Roberta just taking out her anger and making up lies to

make Twyla feel bad?

4. Q. Why does Roberta break down so abruptly about what

happened to Maggie at the end?

5. Q. Why do we not get to know Twyla’s reaction at the end?

Are we supposed to answer what happened to Maggie ( where

is that division of race now?)

.

COMPARING WORKS WE HAVE READ

What does” Morrison’s “Recitatif” have in common with

Hughes’s “Who’s Passing for Who?

What do they share with other works? How are they dif ferent?

“Passing,” the poem

“Passing,” the short story

“Leaves from the Portfolio of an Eurasian”

Passing, the novel

Do you have any other insights into “passing” that you have realized

through our readings or discussions.

Read: Kennedy "Racial Passing." Posted under "Secondary Sources."

Post #7: Discuss one story from Kennedy's article that particularly speaks to you. How did it influence you in your thinking about passing? Include cited textual evidence.

Read: “Racial Segregation” William Pickens and the essay #2 prompt.

Study: Terms

HOMEWORK