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Before The Sandbox Is Closed The role of the person is the society is one of the most recurrent themes in the world literature. The historical background of the United States greatly influenced the development of the American literature and its major themes. In the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries the fall of the slavery institution, the racial segregation and the continuous inflow of immigrants arose such questions, as ethical inequality in the society. People of different ethical or geographical origin confronted with the denial of the society, tried to build their lives in unfriendly reality. These problems were amply reflected by the American literature, the authors tried to draw the public attention towards the problems of ethical minorities in the society. The books Sula (1973) by Toni Morrison, Sonny's Blues (1957) by James Baldwin and The Promised Land by Mary Antin (1912) deal with the conflict between the personal ethnicity of their characters and that of mainstream American society.
The book Sula by Toni Morrison portrays the lives of two African American women Sula and Nel, who had different outlooks and ways of life. The antagonism between the right and the wrong is the main theme of the book. Sula is outcast in her neighborhood The Bottom; she does not seek any emotional attachment, does not want family and possesses no moral principles. Nel, on the other hand, is viewed as good, positive person. While the polarization of the book is right and according to the moral rules Sula is rightfully judged by her neighbors and her friends, she is never intentionally bad. "Being good to somebody is just like being mean to somebody. Risky.
You don't get nothing for it" (Morrison, pp. 144 - 45). This phrase characterizes Sula: she does not possess any qualities at all, neither bad nor good. It is important to notice, that Sula was absent from her hometown for ten years, while she attended college and traveled around the country. This is obvious, that the source of Sula's behavior is knowledge, and not only scholar, but life experience as well. The legend about the history of The Bottom symbolizes the racial segregation, which was introduced in the American after the abolition of slaves. The owner promised his slave freedom and rich land at the bottom of the hill for the favor in return, but at the end the slave owner freed the slave and tricked him with the land, giving him a poor soil on top of the hill, calling it the bottom of the heaven.
The slave was happy at first but soon he understood that he was cheated. The racial segregation in America was the cheating as well. The African Americans gained freedom from their owners but they have not gained the right to be the equal members of the society. Sula had witnessed and experienced the racial segregation in America, which influenced the rest of her life. Sula's denial of any emotional ties symbolizes her aspiration for freedom. If she is unable to become a free member of the society, she found herself a surrogate freedom in abandoning all moral ties.
She was completely free of ambition, with no affection for money, property or things, no greed, no desire to command attention or compliments-no ego. For that reason she felt no compulsion to verify herself-be consistent with herself. (Morrison, pp. 118 - 119) The main problem of the book lies in Sula's inability to see the roots of her social protest. Sula never becomes the voice of African Americans, but instead she is rebuked by her neighbors, her family and her friends. Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin closely relates to the book Sula by Toni Morrison. The book Sonny's Blues describes the two brothers and their dealing with segregation of African Americans. While Sonny's Blues has many similarities with Sula, it has different message.
James Baldwin tells the story of two brothers, the unnamed narrator of the story and Sonny. This book is also based on opposition of good and bad, darkness and light. The narrator of the story is horrified with the fact that his brother became a heroine addict and got in jail. Slowly, the narrator comes to understanding that Sonny's behavior and his music were just the means of escape from the reality of his life. The narrator recollects that his fathers brother was killed by the drunken whites, he sees, that the boys, whom he teaches algebra, would very likely end like his brother and finally he understands, how little opportunities have African Americans in the society of whites. Confines in ghetto by segregation African American children have no chance to develop their talents and abilities, and they can express their aspiration for freedom only through crimes and drug addiction.
The narrator goes through the transformation of outlook, he understands, that Sonny's drug addiction is the means of escape from the sufferings and tragedies of segregation and Sonny's music is the means of expressing his feelings. I had the feeling that they were being most careful not to step into that circle of light too suddenly: if they moved into the light too suddenly and without thinking, they would perish in flame. (Baldwin. p. 103) This phrase is very symbolic in the book. Sonny used to be similar to Sula, seeking phantom escape in denial of the social norms, indulging in forbidden pleasures.
But at the same time Sonny is different from Sula, because he understands the roots of his troubles, the reason of his sufferings. By the end of the book Sonny comes to peace with himself and his brother, and they both understand, that while resistance to the oppression and segregation is important, it can consume and burn the person. The Promised Land by Mary Antin tells the autobiographic story of Russian immigrants in America. Mary Antin tells the story of Jews, who were seeking escape from the racial discrimination and were seeking for the biblical Promised Land, where they will find home and peace. The phrase The Promised Land is very symbolic in the story. When at the beginning of the story America is viewed as the country without troubles and full of possibilities, it turns out, that it is not different from Mary Antin's native country, full of prejudices and hardships.
The notion The Promised Land becomes the synonym of disappointment and failed expectations and new inconveniences. In addition to old familiar troubles like discrimination of Jews Mary Antin's family had to experience the impact of the new culture and new standards. The author shows how difficult it is to simultaneously preserve ones personality and historical heritage in the society as well as assimilate and become an equal member of this society. The Promised Land helped to redefine what it means to be an American especially now that immigration and multiculturalism have become such significant issues for our own time. (Sollors, ed. Antin, p. 3) The twentieth century brought many changes to the American culture and American literature. During the historical development of the America family ties has always had much value.
Family made people stronger and together they could overcome the hardships. With the rapid economic and political development people gained more opportunities to rely on themselves, in the middle of the twentieth century women could have jobs and support themselves. This was new aspect of personal freedom. Being less dependent on the family people started to pay attention to the family atmosphere and question the strength of the family ties. The family relations were inspected and criticized. There arose such questions as family abuse.
Many of the American writers had the possibility to express their thoughts and experiences about family. In the poem Daddy (1963) Sylvia Plath tells the story of abusive father and narrators, here Sylvia's attitude towards the father. From the first stanza, the author creates the image of constraints that the father held over her. The metaphor of the black shoe, in which Sylvia lived for thirty years, symbolizes the moral pressure of her father. Plath first associates herself with Jews oppressed by Fascists and she associates her father with Fascist and their leader Hitler.
I think I may well be a Jew (Plath) your neat mustache (Plath) The allusion to Jews and Hitler carries ambiguous meaning and shows that the influence of Otto Plath on his daughter was deathly destructive. Sylvia Plath associates her sufferings with suffering of Jews in times of Holocaust, reveals her genuine sufferings from her father, who was physically and morally abusive. The poem Daddy by Sylvia Plath carries very pessimistic tone. The woman realizes that for all of her life she was dominated first by her abusive father and later by her no less abusive husband. Her father died when she was ten years old, but he continued to influence her adult life. The end of the poem is dramatic, as well as the end of Sylvia Plath's life.
The poison of corruptive influence of both her father and husband was very deep in Plath's blood. She attempted suicide three times and finally, in 1963, at the age of thirty she killed herself with cooking gas. Sylvia Plath experienced the oppression of women, and she looked into her childhood through the prism of her dependant and constrained adulthood. It is important to notice, that even in the third millennium there remained traces of chauvinism and oppression of women. In the first half of the twentieth century, the feminism movement was only making first steps for emancipation of women. Sylvia Plath viewed her father and her husband as the symbols of oppression, the only escape from which was death.
John Updike in his works draws close attention to the weakening of the family ties in the contemporary society. Updike has projected his first marriage experience on his art and wrote several of short stories about an unhappy Richard and Joan Maple. In the story Separating John Updike tells the story of Richard and Joan who become trapped in the meaningless routine of their unhappy marriage. They do not have any feelings towards each other and do not even lick each other. Richard and John try to understand the reason of their unhappiness and find solution to their problems. When the couple approaches the decision of separating, there come to light new problems.
The couple has four children who can be hurt by separating of the parents. Richard feels that Joan's idea of telling the children about the separation might become one of the means to control him, because children will blame him. Richard himself feels responsible of hurting his children: I hate this. Hate it. My father would have died before doing it to me. (Updike, p. 1820) This phrase highlights the difference between the generations, when the parents could suffer the unhappy marriage only to keep their children content. The story Separating rises several important questions.
The dilemma between the separating and preserving the marriage for childrens sake clashes with the question of what is better: to separate and hurt the children, or stay married and make then witness the unhappiness of the parents. Unfortunately, these questions remain open until today. Richard and Joan Maple received one of the first no-fault divorces granted in the state of Massachusetts while nowadays divorces are very common, but children are always hurt by the divorce of their parents. If the unhappy couple does not divorce, this also may hurt their children, which can be evident from the Daddy by Sylvia Plath. In the story Separating John Updike does not discuss the advantages of the divorce.
The author calls for people to stay human and caring despite the choices they make. Children should never be blamed and punished for the mistakes of their parents. The play The Sandbox by Edward Albee also raises the questions of misunderstanding between the parents and the children, but here the suffering party is the grandmother. This play The Sandbox tells the story of a grandmother, who is old and ill and on the care of his daughter and daughters husband.
The family tries to rearrange its life and accept new and unhealthy member, but it fails. Here we encounter the reversal of the parental roles, when children need to take care of their parents while the latter are dependant on them. This moment is very crucial to every family who has an elderly ember and the moral obligation of every child is to take care of the parents. The children from the play The Sandbox formally accepted their duties and they accepted the elderly grandmother.
But in their hearts they did not accept the duty, they were irritated with the burden. MOMMY: Be quiet, Grandma just be quiet, and wait. (Albee, l. 29) This irritation did not let them to grief the soon death of the grandmother. (Albee, ll. 60 - 70) The grandmother is tired of inattentiveness and rudeness of the children and welcomes the Angel of Death. The Mommy and the Daddy in Edward Albee's play The Sandbox are not evil people and they love the grandmother. But when the people encounters with the ageing and weakening of close relatives, they first become saddened with it, then become used to it and after that comes irritation. Grandmother usually fights with Mommy and the Daddy, says that the have no respect to her, but subconsciously she is aware of their emotional burden.
Grandmother is afraid of inattention, afraid of death, because to her neglect symbolizes death. At the end of the play the Grandmother is willingly goes with the Angel of Death not because she is really angry with her children, but because she wants to give a relief to herself and to them as well. The Sandbox by Edward Albee is a play that conveys an underlying message of elderly care, senility and death and burial. The problem of the contemporary society is that the family ties between grown up children and their parents become loose. Today Children usually leave parents home after school and rarely communicate with the parents. Such alienation causes many communication problems when both children and parents become older.
The play reflects modern trends on the elderly and the perspective of how they are dealt with. Edward Albee shows how people loose communication in the face of fear of illness, ageing and death. The author shows, that the last precious moments should not be tainted by irritation and fight. The author calls people to pay more attention to each other, because when the Sandbox closes, they would not be able to say the words of love to the ones that have gone. Bibliography Albee, Edward. Zoo Story and The Sandbox.
Dramatists Play Service, N. Y. , 1998. Baldwin, James. Sonny's Blues.
Penguin Books Ltd. , 1995. Bassett, Susan, ed. Women Writers: Sylvia Plath. Barnes and Noble Books, 1987. Morrison, Toni. Sula.
Penguin Group, 1982. Plath, Sylvia. The Collected Poems. Harper & Row, 1981. Sollors, Werner ed. Antin, Mary.
The Promised Land. Random House USA Inc, 2001. Updike, John. The Early Stories: 1953 - 1975.
Barnes & Noble, 2003.
Free research essays on topics related to: toni morrison, racial segregation, poem daddy, sylvia plath, sonny blues
Research essay sample on Sylvia Plath Racial Segregation
