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| The Member of the Wedding (1952) |
Choose one of the following questions and answer it with 200-250 words
1) In The Member of the Wedding, the kitchen is an important setting in which the major part of the story takes place. Berenice, Frankie, and John Henry (although different in age, race, and gender) are "members" of this space and create their utopian fantasies to compensate for inadequacies/discriminations in their real lives. Which episodes in the novel best demonstrate the utopian colors of the kitchen and the collective imagining of its members?
2) In The Member of the Wedding, which character chiefly engages your interest? Why?
3) In Carson McCullers's freak world, hybrid and mixture are favored; sameness and stable identity are rejected. In The Member of the Wedding, tropes of "betweenness" or "hybridity" are prevalent. What characters or episodes best demonstrate this "mixture of delicious and freak," a phrase coined by John Henry to describe his ideal world?
19 comments:
1.In chapter 2, Page546, F. Jasmine, Berenice, and John Henry judged the work of God and mentioned the ways how they would improve the world. I think this episode in the novel best demonstrates the utopian colors of the kitchen and the collective imagining of its member. These three worlds were made according to these “God’s” standards and wishes and they were totally different according to their different ages and races and bizarre even a little bit ridiculous. At first, the world of God John Henry was a mixture of delicious and freak which only happen in fairy tales, and that reflects the childlike character of John Henry. Next, the Holy Lord God Berenice was a round and just and reasonable, and the description corresponds to the image of a 40 peace amiable black woman. Berenice had three goals. 1. No separate colored people in the world, but all human men and ladies and children as one loving family.2. No war.3. Ludie Freeman came back. We can know Berenice suffered from the “color problem” for a long time from the first goal, especially Carson McCullers emphasized Berenice’s voice was a strong deep song while she explained the idea; and no war implicated that people tired of the world war two. The last God F. Jasmine added more wonderful and funny details than others, including an aeroplane and a motorcycle to each person, a world club, a war island, and the interesting one is that human could change their sex instantly back and forth. These goals also illustrate F. Jasmine’s traits, for example, she loved to be free, to make friends with anyone in the world, and she was some kind of tom boy, even a little bit savage. Carson McCullers describes the three main characters not directly but by their hopes or dreams to emphasize what they don’t have and the deep eagerness within their hearts and that strengthen the images of them.
I like Bernice in the story most. I think that she is a very kind person who is like Frankie and John Henry’s mother. She always listens to their thoughts and gives sincere comments to them. She understands that children or teenagers have innocent impulsion and pure mind. She doesn’t get mad when they don’t behave politely, but tell them the better way to do in an educational way. She is just like their friend, and she is always there for them. No matter they’re hungry or need someone to accompany, Bernice is the best choice. She’s a good listener and also a person to depend on. We know that she has some sad things in her heart and her life isn’t very smooth, either. But she always looks so optimistic and shares the warm feelings with others. Even when Honey needs help, she gives him a hand without hesitation. I think that she is the kind of person who can give others a lot of courage and comfort others but she can’t talk to anyone deeply about her sorrow. She cares a lot about what she tells John Henry when he has a headache. She really blames herself. It’s like another pain that can’t be released adding to her mind. Bernice is so nice that I think it will be good to have her being in the house.
First, the kitchen was a space which they spent most time on it in their daily life. They ate supper there. They played poker there. This common place made them feel relax and joyful. Somehow it became the magical place for them to share their experiences, express their dissatisfactions and make their utopian fantasies. In the novel, the episode which was best demonstrate the utopian colors in the kitchen was --- when they judging the work of God. Take a look on John, I think he was a cute character and just a little child. So in his created world, there might be some queer things which he had thought to be funny, cute and childish. In Berenice created world, she supposed that all human being are brown hair, blue eyes and black hair. There are no separated colored people in the world. No war. No starving that every human have the same quantity of free food and meal. And Ludie could get back. All she wanted to pursue was ‘’equality’’ and ‘’sameness’’. In Frankie’s created world, she agreed the first part of Berenice had mentioned (all mankind are the same) because she could be a member of this ‘’same world club’’ and never be an outsider or a freak. She would like to travel around so she needed a plane and a motorcycle. She wanted to have a war island which she could donate her blood to those who fight on the island. She was desired on join the army but at her times she couldn’t because she was a girl. She required all season as a winter because she didn’t have the good impression on summer. The final thing she wanted to be was that people can change the gender whenever they want. We know she was a teenager. Here somehow shows that she did not have the idea of her sexual identity.
I am interesting in the big mama, Berenice Sadie Brown, in The Member of the Wedding. She is a black maid who works for Addams’ family. I think she is one of the most important parts in Frankie’s life. Frankie is a twelve-year-old adolescent who feels totally disconnected from the world and she doesn’t have mother to accompany with her in this transition period. And Berenice plays the kind of role of Frankie’s mother in the story. She represents all Frankie has to learn and know. She tell Frankie what is love and also tell her that the cruel realities of racism. Moreover, she always questioning Frankie's suspect motives and explaining Frankie's feelings to her. And she always gives hands to Frankie and the little boy, John Henry, without any hesitation. She is such a warm and person who can be relied on. In the story, Berenice has one dark eye and one glass blue eye; it is a kind of grotesque and mysterious. Also, because of her African-American status, I think that is why Berenice can perceive everything sensitively and have her own understanding for the reality. The author seeks to break down the stereotype about the different color skin people by this character. Berenice's wise and likable character gives readers a profound impression to accept the differences for people who are in different races.
The character that I like the most is Berenice. Berenice is a middle-aged black woman who was hired to be the family’s housekeeper. She seems to always stay at the kitchen whenever the story mentioned about her. She was married for four times before, and had lost an eye during one of the marriages. She is wise and kind, when Frankie had some strange thoughts or questions, she could answer or respond to her. She is liked a mother to Frankie that take care of her all the time. She played an important role on stopping Frankie going on to the wrong way. She would question her if she had some wishful thinking, and explain why she had the feeling. As a black woman, in the time when people still have stereotypes on the black, she had been caught in her identity; she had to struggle to live in a white society. It is also a provocative in that age which Frankie and Berenice had a very close relationship. When Berenice, Frankie, and John Henry eating, talking, and playing cards, she was living a simple and happy life. But the marriage of Frankie’s brother was a turning point. Honey brown was in jail, and John Henry was died of sickness. These things made the kind and optimistic black woman felt sad and kind of blame herself. If these terrible things didn't happen, she would be the kind and happy person that I wish to have around.
In the story “The Member of the Wedding,” John Henry who is a character of a six year old boy attracts me the most. John Henry is a really cute and contradictory character to readers. There are several reasons to explain my interests to him. Firstly, in the aspect of clothes, John wears pairs of gold-rimmed glasses, a tiny lead donkey tied, and a gallus trousers without any short inside (which uncover his chest and being naked). He also very curious about girls’ clothes, once he wore Berenice’s hat and high-heeled shoes then walked as a woman. It somehow looks lovely and reveals that John is in the stage of recognizing his sex distinction and more prefer girls’ ornaments and stuff, like clothes and the doll which Frankie gave him. Secondly, John’s utopian thought is very childish and pure; most of us just lost this innocence. He said if he is the God, he’s world was a mixture of delicious and freak, chocolate dirt and rains of lemonade and candy flowers, just like a fairy tale. He doesn’t like Berenice who wishes world peace, or Frankie who wishes a violent War Island. He is just pure like a paper. Finally, Carson McCullers deprived John of the novel, maybe just like what professor said, he is too pure to live in this world(and his strange couldn’t be received by the world), maybe he belongs to the heaven.
In the second episode, starting from P.546, three of them were in the kitchen talking about if they were God, how they would change the world. This act, criticizing the creator, was actually the reflection of anxiety and thirst towards the real life; they are creating their own utopia. John Henry to start with: his world was a mixture of delicious and freak; such an innocent world full of fine things, very creative and imaginative, and I think this is a place where all children wants to live in. One of the features of John Henry was that he likes to mix everything together; there are no boundaries inside him. Second comes to Berenice Sadie Brown: a black woman who wishes a place with no separated coloured people, and she protested racism prejudice. Race issue was a depressed and blue subject for black people at that time, and she also felt pity and sorry for the Jews because they were facing a similar situation. No war and no hunger, and no racism, these are the subject we are still fighting until today. As for Frankie Adams, I think she owned the soul of the Gypsy. She was eager to travel around the world and try different kinds of work (it’s understandable why she wanted to change sex because at that time, woman should stay in the house and be a lady) Frankie has the drifted soul and craves for adventure but was trapped in a little girl’s body, and that’s why she was restless all the time.
I like, John Henry, this character. He is cute and he had some characters which attract me. For example, after he and Frankie went to fair to watch the freak show, he pretend a freak with imaginary skirt. And, when he put raisin on cookie dough, he put these carefully and orderly. This action is not like other boy in this age. I feel interested in these characters because these characters symbolize female characters. I think it means that John Henry have female personalities. And, it means that John Henry’s character is not sure. He can change anytime. He cannot be limited. It is a way that Carson likes to use. Carson likes to describe young boy or girl with different character to emphasize perplexity of adolescence. Besides, John Henry’s thought is another point attracts me. He thinks this word should be consisted with delicious foods. His thought is all fantastic. I think it symbolize that child’s innocence and not be polluted by this complicated world. I like this thought because it means that our thought could be not restrict and we can have dream even though this dream is unreal or ridiculous. This can support us to come true our dream.
The character who interests me the most is John Henry West in Carson McCullers’s The Member of the Wedding, a story telling an anxiety and agitation of adolescent. The protagonist is France Frankie Addams but the six-year-old boy, John Henry, is in contrast to Frankie. At age, John Henry is half Frankie’s age. He is shorter than her in physique. Because Frankie is in the period of adolescent, she sometimes is frenzied and hysterical, while John Henry is serene and calm. Moreover, she is irrational; however, he is pretty sober. Frankie sees how romantic her brother and his finace are, and she is eager to grow up. Nevertheless, John Henry is an even-minded child enjoying his childhood. Sometimes, when Frankie feels anxious, she projects her insecurities onto John Henry. Also, Frankie gives John Henry what she does want any more because she forces herself to be an adult and to discard something childlike or childish, and at the same time she is longing for discovering the recognition. In some certain way, John Henry is the representation of Frankie’s innocent childhood. The action that Frankie passes the doll on him means she wants to say goodbye to her childhood.
Finally, John Henry dies of meningitis. The narrator slightly tells his death. It shows that the narrator attempts to tone down the importance of John Henry. It is no denying that John Henry is the representational time of being child, which Frankie ever experienced. To conclude, John Henry does not play an as important part as Frankie does but he works as an outstanding foil for Frankie.
2) I like Jasmine very much. Although she was a tomboy and was always cynical about her life, she represented many girls’ struggles for adolescent. I think every person prefer to be accepted by a group instead of being alone. However, when Jasmine grew up, she faced many changes of adulthood. The adults depended less on their parents. They gathered into groups and shared the feelings with each other. it was an important process of growing up. Unfortunately, Jasmine was not accepted by the club because of her age. It seemed that Jasmine only had Berenice and John Henry who could talk about her emotion. In fact, both of them was not fit for Jasmine because one was too old and the other was too young for her. Therefore, Jasmine desired to leave the small and dreary town. The narrator described the inner storm of Jasmine lively. The character strikes my chord deeply although I am not a woman. However, I was also annoyed by the self identity when I was in the senior high. Besides, I felt lonely and nobody understood me. The situation which Jasmine faced made me associate with my own experience. It was a challenge to overcome. When people conquered it, they would become more mature entirely.
2.) In my point of view, the most interesting character is Berenice. She is the wisest character in the story; but somehow, she is also being stocked when she is pursuing love. She is Frankie’s nanny, who knows Frankie the most. She often eases Frankie’s anxiety no matter how Frankie reacts to her. She seems like a wise woman, but she has married for four times. Except for the first one, the last three were just chasing the ghost of the first, the real love of her life.
She says “We all of us somehow caught” (p.567). I think she is not only indicating that she is black, but caught by the love she is chasing. She cannot forget her first husband, so the reason for she falls in love with the next three is that she is “caught” by the familiarization of her first husband, and she always got bad ends.
It is pretty sad that we are often caught by memories of the past. When we try to copy or recreate them, we often get upset consequences in the end. No matter how deep is your love toward the goner, the goner is gone, never comes back. I think this is why there are so many broken hearts, whose hearts have been broken again and again.
In this novel, John Henry most engages my interest. He is an innocent figure in this story. John is a pure child, he has not been ruined by this world so deeply. Among the main characters, John is the youngest character, and people around him do not put much emphasis on him. What he had said is often been ignored. John thinks the Pin Head little girl is the cutest girl he ever saw. I think his values are not been changed by the social yet. Many people in this world claim them “creeps”, and did not like them. But John Henry can appreciate the special girl. He is so merciful that he can accept those who are different from him. When Berenice didn’t take John’s words seriously, ten days later he passed away. In my opinion, I think his death is a hint—If you neglected the little child around you, you will lost him. In the spiritual aspect, even Henry didn’t die, his mind would be hurt because of the adults’ neglect.(Its hurt serious than physical hurt) Frankie and Berenice surely love John, but they never show it. Sometimes when a person is by your side, you may not think that he is so important for you. But when you have already lost him, maybe you start to learn how to cherish other people around you. I think John’s death teaches Frankie a lesson in the process of growing up. John is an angel anyway.
From characters’ words, we could understand their nature, while the words, "mixture of delicious and freak," a phrase coined by John Henry was the exact description for himself. John Henry, a six-year-old boy. He was small at that age, and he wore tiny gold-rimmed glasses on his face. He adored his older cousin, Frankie, very much. John Henry was not an ordinary boy because he always wanted to dress up some clothes or high heels belonged to Berenice or Frankie. He liked the doll Frankie despised. Even though he was quite different from the rest of the world, he was still willing to embrace possibilities. First we learned that he was kind and sweet to Frankie although she often vented her anger of the world on him. Then when they visited the freaks show, he enjoyed watching them not because he could get superiority from them; instead, he sincerely appreciated their differences. And when the three, Frankie, Berenice and John Henry talked about how they would have done if they were God, he said that he want a "mixture of delicious and freak". From those words we can tell that John Henry was a unique and precious character who had a spirit of extensive love and kindness.
Kitchen is a place where they spend lots of time staying at there. They eat supper, play cards, and share something special or different. Their kitchen likes a living room; they can chat with three of them happily or sadly. In the second episode, page from 546 to 547 in the novel, I think this episode is the best demonstrate the utopian colors of the kitchen and the collective imagining of its members. When they began the second round of that last dinner, they started to criticize the Creator. According to their different ages, colors and experience, they had their own imagination to improve the world. First, the Holy Lord God John Henry’s world was a mixture of delicious and freak, and he did not think in global terms. He considers that people and animals have not boundary, because he imagined a hinged tail that could be let down as a kind of prop to sit on. He was a cute boy that he showed his innocent and pure. Second, the Holy Lord God Berenice thought that no color people, no war and no hunger in the world and Ludie Freeman would be alive. This meant that Berenice lived in a disadvantaged environment just because she was black color. She really wanted a fair treatment in the world. Finally, the Holy Lord God Frankie, she considered that an aeroplane and motorcycle to each person,a world club with certificates and badges, a War Island in the world where those who wanted to fight or donate blood. The fact was that Frankie was eager to leave her country and be a member of clubs. Moreover, Carson McCullers arranged this plot to reflect the true society at that time.
I like Frankie most. In the story, she is a crazy girl with variable emotions. Also, she is talkative and always share her thoughts without modifying her words. We can easily know her mood ups and downs. Frankie is very active but sometimes she behaves so queer. In the movie, Frankie is like Amelia. Both of them are masculine. She acts in a violent way. She uses knife to slice the rinds on her feet, throwing knife on the wall even wants to join the army. The actor represent the role well and realistic. Because the role of Frankie is vivid, she is an important character in every part. She always wants to leave the house however she never knows where she should go. I think she in the rebellious phase. She cannot fix herself in any group. She get lost on the way of her life. Even her father doesn't have time to care her a lot. Finally, she decides to leave home for good. But, in the end, she goes back her home and find her own self. Frankie has showed the period which most of us would face in the past. That also recalls my childhood memory. Whatever we do, family would always be around you and back you up.
The character which engaged me the most in this story was Frankie. In the series of McCullers's story, most of the themes were about loneliness and being a member. Stories of Carson McCullers mostly presented the isolation of “freak”; different people from the mainstream. Frankie was one of the alternative people in story and she was somehow categorized as a freak with Chattahoochee Exposition; both the look and her thought were unusual with the mainstream. Why Frankie was the character which I most interested in? Perhaps most of the story descriptions were according to Frankie’s perspective. Furthermore Frankie was a girl who was totally different from expectation of the community. I was curious whether she would gain the acceptance inside this story. At the beginning of the story, Frankie was looking for a member in her life. Because of her bad smell and her boy-like behavior, she was rejected to be a member of the clubhouse in the neighborhood. Frankie wasn't a tender lady like the mainstream. She wished she could be a boy and go to war and she thought about flying airplanes instead of being a lady who put on lipstick or put on makeup. Consequently Frankie didn't fit in any clubs because of her gender, age, and thoughts. I was interested in Frankie’s character because of her desire of freedom. It was true that why should people categorize the mainstream and the non-mainstream? Why should people discriminate one another? She wished there would no different colored people. Besides she wished there was alternative gender.
Berenice Sadie Brown is the character who attracts my attention. On the surface, she is just the African-American housekeeper of Addams family, yet, she plays an important role in this novel. For Frankie Addams and John Henry West, Berenice is a real nanny, who takes care of them, plays with them and listens to their thoughts. She always answers and comments on Frankie’s ridiculous questions sincerely and reasonably. However, Frankie seems never take it seriously and sometimes even behaves lack of respect to Berenice. Berenice is like a psychologist of Frankie, a girl during the transitional period between childhood and adulthood, whose job is to figure out the thought of Frankie and also help her to go through it. For her nephew Honey, Berenice is regarded as a mother figure that gives him money and solves his problems. She tries her best to help Honey but he has been put in jail finally. What she has done is all in vain and shows the hopelessness of racism under the society. When it comes to herself, she has married four different husbands. Nevertheless, only the first husband, Ludie, is her true love and as for the rest of husbands was all with some kind of characteristics of Ludie. This demonstrates Berenice's tender and vulnerable part of her inner world. She cannot forget her true love and always hunts for the guys who are similar to Ludie. Just like the heroes in tragedies, Berenice has her tragic flaw. Though Berenice’s devotion and great responsibility to her lovers is touching, she has little power to help them and it tortures her.
Frankie is the character that I'm interested the most. Her fluid of emotion makes the novel becomes her footprint of her transformation. There are many parts in life that seems a blur to her. Like Berenice ’ s hope for a blue eye, and sex itself. But there is no company that helps her out. That makes her lonely but at the same time, free. Because of her ignorant, she gets to makes a lot of mistakes. She spends her time pretending as a Mexican, accompany with a wandering soldier, and chasing for a monkey sideshow. Her life is so free that I would not imagine having. With her enriched observation and sensitive feeling makes her life colorful. She is so sensitive that a wedding become the end of the world for her. It is like heaven if it is me who owns the life. I would not really have jobs to do. All I care is that if I receive my brother’s mall, if the moneyman’s in town, or care about who gets to see snow and not me. I would certainly feel bored, and doesn’t have one to be related to. But so does anyone in the world. Besides, even if I’m lonely, there is Berenice to talk with and John Henry to be annoyed in life. Only if there is not a real responsibility forever falls on my shoulders.
After reading The Member of the Wedding, Berenice, the black woman working in Frankie’s home, impresses me the most. Although she suffers pain from her unfortunate and miserable four times marriage, she still believes in love. On the other hand, we may say that she is a stupid woman in love. Despite her third husband tortures her and blinds her, yet she still stays with him until B.B. marries her. We may think that the author criticizes how the men oppress the women in the patriarchal society, but we can also understand Berenice’s faith in love. Besides, we can realize her kindness to Frankie and John Henry. She shares her experiences with them and answers their questions. Furthermore, she cares about them. In some ways, McCullers portrays Berenice as a good mother. When Frankie sits on her laps and chats with her, it is touched. Moreover, she blames herself when John Henry died. It shows how merciful she is. We can understand that she is not only a good maid but also like mother or friend through this story. In short, the character McCullers describes deeply impresses and comforts me when I read this story.
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