The Cherry Orchard, Remembering People, and Rudeness

In class we talked about the cherry orchard being a metaphor. I am trying to figure out what the cherry orchard represents as I read, and right now I think it could represent wealth. Lyubov is out of money, and Lopakhin suggests "the cherry orchard...[be] cut up" to help pay off her debts (325). Lyubov was rich, but now she her financial situation is poor and she might become completely bankrupt if she decides to cut down the cherry orchard. A long time ago, the cherries "were soft and juicy" and they "brought in money" (326). Maybe during this time that Firs describes, forty or fifty years ago, Lyubov was much wealthier so people were happier. The excessive amount of crying and whining in the story makes me think that money correlates directly to the characters happiness.

Something that stood out to me in the story was how people were having so much trouble remembering other people. They were gone five years, but I feel like they would be able to remember the people they left from their home much better than they did. Lopakhin wonders, "Will she recognize me" (317)? Lyubov states that she "recognized Danyasha" (318). I would think that since Lopakhin and Danyasha were considering meeting the returning people at the train station, they would have a somewhat intimate relationship, close enough that forgetting what someone looked like would not be an issue. I remember what my friends from North Carolina look like even though I left seven years ago and Have not seen them since. That could be because of facebook though. I do not think they have facebook.

Anya annoyed me with her random statements and lack of attention to other characters questions. Danyasha tells Anya about Yepikhodov's proposal to her, and Anya replies, "You always talk about the same thing...I've lost all my hairpins" (319). Rude. Maybe Anya and me have different priorities but I would consider a proposal more important than hairpins, no matter how often anyone talks about it.

Why does it matter?

The part I do not understand about the fact that Huck Finn's speech may be "modeled on black speakers" is its importance. If Mark Twain imagined Huck as a "poor white boy," then I think Huck was supposed to be white. If only Huck's speech is modeled after that of a black person, then I do not really see what the issue is. Huck grew up around slaves, and so their presence probably would have influenced his speech in Mark Twain's eyes. I can easily accept that Twain modeled Huck's speech after Jimmy. I think Twain could have placed parts of Jimmy's personality in Huck. Huck always has something to say and he is captivated by "small marvels" that some would consider "not worth remembering." This allows Huck to have the same effect on the reader that Jimmy had on Twain. Huck can make a great adventure out of nothing, like rescuing a slave who is already free.

However, I do not think Twain's use of Jimmy in Huck had anything to do with the fact that Jimmy was black. I think it was because Jimmy was an interesting kid whose personality could help make a great story. Even if Huck's speech is modeled after a black person's, I disagree that we would have to "rethink who Huckleberry Finn is." He is a white kid who goes against society's ideas because he realizes for himself how kind and how good of a friend Jim is. How would having black speech change that? I was certainly surprised to read that any part of Huck was modeled after a black person, but finding it out really does not change the way I see Huck. If Huck was black my feelings would be completely different, but even Professor Fishkin "was not arguing that Twain envisioned Huck as a black child."

Differences

I do think Jim is meant to characterize many black people during the setting of Huck Finn. Although Jim is not a white man posing as a black man, he probably has some attributes that Twain gave him because he thought they were exhibited by most blacks at that time. For example, Jim's firm beliefs in superstition and witchcraft attract many slaves to see him and touch the token that hangs around his neck, which the devil gave to him. Only slaves came to hear Jim's stories. And Jim's dialect is not shared by any white man in the story. I think that any distinctions between Jim and the white characters of the novel act to separate whites from blacks even more than slavery already does. Because Jim is so different than any other white character in the story, I do think his actions create a small stereotype of how any black man would act.

However, many of Jim's actions are admirable, and would make blacks look good if Twain was in fact characterizing blacks' behavior through Jim. For example, Jim shows remorse for beating his daughter when she did not deserve it while Huck's father never showed remorse for beating Huck for trivial reasons like going to school. While I think Twain does characterize the behavior of blacks through Jim, I do not think he does so to make fun of blacks as in a minstrel show. I think Twain does so to demonstrate a cultural difference between blacks and white which society creates.

Hush

I think editing Huck Finn is ridiculous. I think part of the reason Mark Twain uses the n-word could be to show the reader how dirty and discriminatory it sounds. Mark Twain says in the author's note at the beginning of the book that he studied all the dialects he uses in Huck Finn, and so I am sure white people actually used the word at the time the book takes place. Mark Twain "was a passionate critic of American racism," so no one should edit his book when the point is to expose American racism. The editing of the n-word makes white Americans at that time seem less racist than they were. Personally, I think Twain's use of the n-word makes me more aware of how extremely racist it is.

Huck used the word many times because society taught him that it was okay. Although Huck diverges from society's racist belief through his experiences with Jim, his use of the n-word throughout the novel shows that he can probably never truly break away from the ideas society has placed in his head.