Anagnorsis in "If He Hollers Let Him Go"

When we first meet Bob in the novel he is troubled by the Japanese American citizens that are being detained in internment camps during World War II. He is suffering from anxiety attacks every morning, and he states, “Maybe it had started then, I’m not sure, or maybe it wasn’t until I had seen them send the Japanese away that I’d noticed it. Little Riki Oyana singing ‘God Bless America’ and going to Santa Anita with his parents next day. It was taking a man up by the roots and locking him up without a chance. Without a trial. Without a charge. Without even giving him a chance to say one word. It was thinking about if they ever did that to me, Robert Jones, Mrs. Jones’s dark son, that started me to getting scared” (Himes 3). From the very beginning of the narrative we can see that Bob doesn’t feel safe in the “white world” he lives in. He doesn’t believe that he has any control over his destiny; he can be taken “up by the roots” without a chance to defend himself. This means that Bob can trust no one and every time he leaves his home he will be anticipating a challenge. Throughout the novel we are witness to a multitude of Bob’s paranoid, anxiety-ridden thoughts about how the white man is going to take him down, and it all finally comes to a head when he is falsely accused of raping Madge and consequently beaten and arrested.  Bob’s anagnorisis, or self recognition, becomes so clear to him. He is no longer just afraid of having trouble with the white people he has to interact with on a daily basis, but of America as a whole. He states, “But now I was scared in a different way. Not of the violence... But of America, of American justice” (Himes 187). He had been right all along, but he realizes that it’s not just the people he works with or lives in L.A. with that he needs to fear, but the broader ideology of the country he lives in. He realizes that the psychic structures of slavery still exist.  

Mrs. Hall in "Fanny Fern"

            I found the topic of Mrs. Hall to be interesting in class. As a woman in the 1890’s she holds no power over herself (she belongs to her husband), cannot own any property and is completely dependent on her husband to provide for her. She is treated as a second-class citizen as her ideas are dismissed simply because she is a woman. That being said, she seems desperate for any sense of power and control in her life and has her sights set on fulfilling this through her relationship with her daughter-in-law, Ruth. As the mother of Harry, Mrs. Hall is able to have a certain level of influence and seems to believe that Ruth will steal this precious commodity from her. When we are first introduced to Mrs. Hall she is waiting for the newlyweds and states, “As to Ruth, I don’t know anything about her. Of course she is perfect in his eyes. I remember the time when he used to think me perfect” (10). She immediately is competing with her daughter-in-law for the affections of her son. Mrs. Hall often presents her ideals under the guise of being a pious and sensible woman, but this also seems transparent to me that her motivation is again control and power. After the death of her son and Ruth’s initial refusal to give up custody of her daughters, Mrs. Hall makes it her mission to take them from her. In addition, it’s only after criticism from members of her church that she decides to even help Ruth. Mrs. Hall suggests to her husband that they provide a small fund to Ruth for a limited time so that they “will look better” (82). While all of these schemes and issues are vile attacks on a seemingly good natured person, it can’t help me think about how sad and lonely it must have been to be a woman during this time in American history.

Fern, Fanny. Ruth Hall. New York: Penguin Group, 1997. Print.

Angry Women

        In the article entitled “Anger in the House: Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall and the Redrawing of Emotional Boundaries in Mid-Nineteenth Century America” Linda Grasso discusses the criticism of Ruth Hall  by Fanny Fern when it was published and also specifically the support from Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a prime architect of the Declaration of Sentiments. The article emphasizes Stanton’s stance that Ruth Hall tells an inspiring story of a woman who is not going to rely on men for any economic or social support. She compares the woman’s rights struggle to the growing anti-slavery movement at the time, stating that both groups were facing oppression and had the right to be angry. The article further discusses the topic of anger and how women’s acceptable expression of such an emotion was a threat to the society at that time. 

The most obvious example that I can pull from this article so far in my reading is Ruth Hall’s resistance to give up her children to her overpowering father and father-in-law even though it is causing her so much financial strain. You can see the anger beginning to rise in her when her father first approaches her with the idea of taking her children away. She speaks to her father in what Fanny Fern describes as a “low, clear, distinct” voice, which can only be interpreted to me as strong and a bit angry and were not what most readers would have expected a proper woman to do in that time. 

Grasso, Linda. “Anger in the House: Fanny Fern’s ‘Ruth Hall’ and the Redrawing of Emotional Boundaries in Mid-     

        Nineteenth-Century America.” Studies in the American Renaissance (1995): 251-261. Web.