Texts:
For the purpose of helping you to decide which text you would like to
examine for your oral
presentation, I have included a summary of each text's basic content,
focus, and gist after
the title. If you have any questions about a particular text, please
see me.
American Dreams, Sapphire. This is a very intense collection
of short stories and poems about
such subjects as child abuse (verbal, physical,
and sexual), cultural self-hatred, society's views
towards women, and overcoming trauma. It is extremely
powerful, precisely because it is by
turns devastating, uplifting, inspiring, and provocative.
Linden Hills, Gloria Naylor. This novel examines a middle-class
African American community's
struggle with identity and materialism. It is also
Naylor's analysis of many different issues within
African American communities in general, especially
the rift that has often existed between people
from different classes. Naylor uses Dante Alighieri's
classic Divine Comedy--specifically the circles
of hell--as a model for the community of Linden
Hills.
Dreamer, Charles Johnson. Johnson's historical novel is
several texts simultaneously: a semi-biographical
look at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life and legacy;
a retrospective look at African American
politics in the 1960s; a philosophical novel about
the meaning of love, political struggle, oppression,
and how to overcome all three; a retelling of the
story of Cain and Abel that presents a manichean
struggle between good and evil. Johnson asks us
to consider whether human history can be broken
into such a struggle, and to ask ourselves which
side we are on at a given moment.
Selected Poems, Rita Dove. Dove is a former American poet
laureate. Her poems explore a vast
number of subjects, ranging from love and desire,
to African American historical figures, to
African American politics.
Paradise, Toni Morrison. Morrison's most recent novel
is the third part of a trilogy that began with her
phenomenal 1988 novel, Beloved, and continued
with her 1992 novel Jazz. She tackles a theme very
similar to that of Naylor's Linden Hills:
Why do some communities found themselves on exclusion
rather than inclusion? To be specific, Morrison
uses an all-African American town in Oklahoma as
the location. Tension enters the novel when an eclectic
and eccentric group of women from outside
the community begin living together within one of
its houses. The community's way of (not) dealing
with the outsiders drives the plot.
The White Boy Shuffle, Paul Beatty. This satirical novel
is set primarily within different areas of
southern California, specifically the Los Angeles
area. Beatty uses the hilarious exploits of his
protagonist, Gunnar Kaufman, to lampoon African
American history from Crispus Attucks (the
first person to die in the American Revolution)
and slavery through the early 1990s, especially
the period surrounding the Rodney King beating and
uprising that resulted after his police
assailants' acquittal. Along the way, Beatty asks
us to reconsider the meaning of the Civil Rights
Movement, multiculturalism, African American
literature, African American political activists
and intellectuals, and a vast number of related
subjects.
The following texts are not required, but are highly recommended
for anyone writing
at the college level and beyond. They are available at any good bookstore
or on the Web.
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 5th ed. THE
bible for those who need
a complete guide to proper documentation of sources,
paper formats, and other goodies.
A Writer’s Reference, Third Edition, Diana Hacker. Like the
previous book, but a shorter,
quicker reference. Plenty of helpful information
on common grammar, stylistic, and composition
problems.
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition and/or
Roget’s Thesaurus. If you
do not yet have a dictionary, NOW is the
time to invest in one.
This handout is designed to prepare you for some general items and ideas you should expect as you read The White Boy Shuffle. It’s also designed to help you understand the jokes—Beatty’s got a million of ‘em—and therefore have a lot of fun reading this very funny, zany novel.
I have divided the handout into two sections: General Advice, and page-by-page Hints, Definitions and Background.
General Advice
Got a sense of humor? Use it! Yes, you are allowed to laugh, but see E. below.
Please excuse Beatty’s French. No, not the kind of French they
speak in France, but the
kind that is often spoken when you jam your finger in a car door or hit
your thumb with a
hammer. In other words, cursing. If you find cursing offensive,
I apologize in advance,
but rest assured, Beatty uses it to make his points.
Open that dictionary! To be perfectly
honest, you are going to encounter some new
vocabulary words with this novel. Does
that mean you are going to see so many ten-
dollar words that you do not understand
what’s happening? No, but it does mean that
if you really want to enjoy this book,
you should have a dictionary open and nearby. I
have provided definitions to some
words, terms, and people with which you might not
be familiar, but by no means have I
covered all the words you will not know. It is your
responsibility to check out those
words on your own, as we are not going to spend
class time defining words you could
easily find yourself.
Beatty is serious. Even though
this novel is supposed to be outrageous and funny, it is,
like all satire, serious at its core.
Satire is just a way of conveying a serious message
using humor creatively. What Beatty
is serious about is what you should note and what
we will discuss in class.
ASK QUESTIONS about anything not
on this sheet, please! Feel free to ask about
items on the sheet too!
p. 1: Demagogue: someone who uses popular prejudices and emotions to convince people to follow him/her and do what s/he wants. Adolf Hitler was an obvious demagogue. Watermelanin: I’ll let you figure out the pun yourself, but melanin is the element in human skin that colors the skin. Cabalist: a member of a select, secret, often revolutionary group. Svengali: evil hypnotist in the novel Trilby (1894). A name applied to anyone who secretly manipulates others in a sinister way.
p. 2: Hillside, California: This is a fictional place that is supposed to be on the western side of Los Angeles. It may not be real, but Beatty is basing it on very real places in the Los Angeles area. The areas surrounding the affluent Baldwin Hills and Windsor Hills neighborhoods in L.A. are very much like Hillside. Other places Beatty mentions later are real: Santa Monica (affluent beach city); Compton (made famous by the rap group N.W.A., this is a pretty tough, predominantly African American area); "The Valley" is the San Fernando Valley, a relatively affluent, mostly white part of Los Angeles and source of "Valley Girl" speak (as in "Like, ohmiGod!").
Jim Jones: cult leader who led hundreds of his followers in the People’s Temple to commit mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana in November 1978.
Charles Manson: Masterminded the gruesome Tate-LaBianca murders of August 1969 in Los Angeles, which were committed by his "family" (followers).
General Westmoreland: U.S. Army general responsible for daily operations in the U.S. period of the Viet Nam War (1963-1975), and therefore partially responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, to say nothing of American servicemen.
Whoever led the charge of the Light Brigade: English army commander Lord Lucan, who on October 25, 1854, followed an order to charge his light brigade of 600 men into the face of massive Russian guns. 274 men and 500 horses were killed, many more maimed or wounded.
p. 3. "mama baby, papa maybe." Popular expression meaning that a child’s birth father is unknown, that the father is often absent, and perhaps that the morals of the mother are questionable.
p. 5. Our narrator’s references to his decidedly inglorious family are meant to let us know that he is not like the protagonists of other African American literary texts, such as those by Gloria Naylor (especially Mama Day), Toni Morrison, Ishmael Reed, Alice Walker and even W.E.B. Du Bois (see his essay "Of Our Spiritual Strivings," which we read).
Gunnar Kaufman: There are at least two jokes or meanings in GK’s name, as well as those of his ancestors, whom you’ll meet in the next few pages: a) how many native-born African Americans do you know named Gunnar, Guiseppi or Euripides Kaufman?; b) the name "Gunnar" is supposed to remind us of Gunnar Myrdal, the Swedish economist who wrote the groundbreaking study of American race relations, An American Dilemma, in 1944; c) enslaved African were commonly named by and after their owners.
p. 8: Euripides: Ancient Greek dramatist (ca. 484-406 B.C.E.). Some whites used to (a few still do) considered it good luck to rub an African American’s head. Obviously, this is now a very offensive stereotype.
p. 9: Crispus Attucks: A real historical figure. A free African American who was the first person to die in the Boston Massacre and therefore first to die in the American Revolution. Beatty’s subsequent description of the Massacre is half-fiction (the part about Gunnar’s ancestor is fiction) and half-truth (the rest is real). LAPD: Los Angeles Police Department. I would like to say that Beatty’s description of the LAPD’s harassment and brutality is greatly exaggerated. I really would, honest. But that wouldn’t be true.
pp. 14-15: Swen Kaufman’s dancing moves are real, as is the marriage ritual he and his bride followed. Since slave marriages were not legally recognized, slaves would often jump a broom (a tradition that evolved from West African ones) to signify that they’d crossed over into matrimony.
p. 16: Compton Benjamin Quentin Tannenberry: Refers not only to the famous California city, but also to William Faulkner’s masterpiece novel, The Sound and the Fury, which features the Compson family. Benjamin Compson is mentally retarded; Quentin Compson is emotionally disturbed and has a rather unhealthy fascination with his sister, Candace. Compton and Franz von Tannenberry are also meant to remind us a little of two characters (a slave and his master, switched at birth and nursed by the same slave woman, mother to the slave) in Mark Twain’s novella, Pudd’nhead Wilson. Marse: Master.
p. 17: Anglican Saxon: cf. (compare) "Anglo-Saxon" (English people and their descendants in England and the Americas).
p. 20: Wolfgang and Ludwig Kaufman: Think of classical musicians/composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Austrian; 1756-1791) and Ludwig van Beethoven (German, 1770-1827). Although Ludwig was not there, the description of Malcolm X’s assassination is otherwise accurate. Eyes on the Prize: Excellent multi-part documentary of the Civil Rights Movement. We watched part of the episode on Malcolm X in class.
p. 21: Yeehaw: An exclamation that has been heard on more than a few occasions in the South. Dred Scott: The Supreme Court decision against this slave in 1857 determined that African Americans had no rights that any white man was bound to respect. Jefferson Davis: President of the Confederate States of America immediately before and during the Civil War. Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney: Civil Rights workers killed by the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists near Philadelphia, Mississippi in August 1964.
p. 22: SNCC: Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a major Civil Rights organization of the 1960s comprised mostly of African American college students. It became less nonviolent as the Civil Rights movement was eclipsed by Black Power. Birth of a Nation: D.W. Griffith’s classic film adapted from Thomas Dixon’s racist novel, The Clansman. The film shows, among other things, false scenes of African Americans revolting and attempting to rape white women after the Civil War. It also makes heroes out of the early Ku Klux Klan. Despite its racism, the film is still considered one of the best and most innovative films of all time.
p. 24: Madame C.J. Walker: the first African American self-made millionaire, she made her fortune from a line of hair- and skin-care products. Coors Brewing Company: Its owners have a long history of racism and deep conservatism.
p. 25: Orange County: Small, affluent and predominantly Republican county southeast of Los Angeles County. Home of Disneyland.
p. 28: Mestizo Mulatto Mongrel Elementary: All terms for the same thing: race-mixing (the first word is Spanish). Ms. Cegeny: A pun; miscegenation is race-mixing.
p. 34: Cesar Chavez: Chicano (Mexican-American) activist (1927-1993) who led the United Farm Workers (UFW) from the mid-1960s until his death. Chavez is as important a figure to Chicano history as Martin Luther King, Jr is to African American history.
p. 38: Simon Wiesenthal: Activist who has dedicated his life to hunting down Nazi war criminals. He has helped to track down, capture, try and convict many such murderers. Dudley Do-Right: Cartoon character in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The RCMP are known for always getting their man (or woman, as the case might be). Gestapo: Short for Geheime staatspolizei, or "secret state police," this branch of the Nazi government maintained order and obedience to the Nazis in Germany through terror, intimidation and torture. Third Army: WWII Army under the command of the famous, flamboyant General George S. Patton. Himmler: Heinrich Himmler was the head of the Schutzstaffel (protection echelon), or SS, which was responsible for, among other things, running the concentration camps that slaughtered millions of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, prisoners of war, mentally ill persons and many other "undesirables" during the Nazi regime. Aryan: Nazis considered Germans part of the Aryan race, and therefore superior to all other people in the world. Mein Kampf: (My Struggle) This book by Adolf Hitler provided most of the blueprints for Nazi domination and terror. Boys from Brazil: Book by Ira Levin about neo-Nazis. Thirty Seconds over Tokyo: Book by Ted W. Lawson about the first American bombing of Japan in WWII. Buchenwald and Auschwitz: Two of the most infamous and brutal Nazi death camps. Luftwaffe: German air force. All of the German names following on this page and the top of the next page are those of different Luftwaffe airplanes.
p. 39: Bataan death march: A march that American soldiers captured by the Japanese were forced to make in the Philippines in 1942. Many died from starvation, disease or abuse along the way. Avenging the Bataan death march was given to President Truman as one of the reasons to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. It was also a rallying cry for American soldiers fighting in the Pacific. "Dresden! Dunkirk! Banzai!" Dresden is a German city that was almost completely destroyed via Allied firebombing. Dunkirk was where the British Army was driven out of Europe near the beginning of WWII. "Banzai!" was a Japanese war cry; the other two words were also war cries for the Germans and British, respectively. Los Alamos: Town in New Mexico where the first atomic bombs, Little Boy and Fat Man, were developed by Robert Oppenheimer and many other physicists and engineers.
p. 43. "young, dumb, and full of cum." Another popular expression meant to describe the state of most young people in a disparaging way.
p. 45: San Borrachos: No such mountains exist in the Los Angeles area, but borrachos means "drunks."
p. 47: "Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula": The original and full name of the City of Los Angeles, which began as a Spanish Mission (like many cities in California, hence Spanish names such as San Francisco, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, San Diego, Santa Maria, etc.), it translates roughly as "Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula."
p. 48: Dystopia: The opposite of Utopia, which is a nonexistent, perfect place.
p. 50: Miles Davis: Late Jazz trumpeter. If you haven’t heard any of his music, you are missing out. Davis had a very raspy voice and used m-----f----- frequently in his speech. Betty and Veronica: Names of rival characters in Archie Comics.
p. 51: ignorantia juris neminem excusat: Latin phrase meaning, "ignorance of the law excuses no one."
p. 53: Verboten! German word meaning "forbidden." Black National Anthem: "Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing," by James Weldon Johnson.
p. 54: Walden: Refers to Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, in which the author describes how he built and lived in a small cabin near Walden Pond in Massachusetts as a way of demonstrating his personal independence and individualism. Kant, Hegel: Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) were important German philosophers.
p. 55: Venice Beach: Extremely popular beach boardwalk area near Santa Monica that attracts many eccentric artists and merchants. Parts of the film "White Men Can’t Jump" were filmed there.
pp. 59-60: Gunnar’s description of changes in Los Angeles’ inner-city schools’ racial makeup is not exaggerated. As race relations have changed and housing development has moved away from the inner city of Los Angeles over the last fifty years, many neighborhoods that were once predominantly white are now comprised predominantly of African American, Asian-American or Latino residents.
p. 62: Kathleen y Flaco para siempre con alma: "Kathleen and Flaco ["flaco" also means "skinny"] with love forever." Pythagoras: Greek mathematician from whom we get the Pythagorean theorem in geometry (A2+B2=C2) that explains the dimensions of triangles. Barrio (Spanish): Neighborhood.
p. 65: Federalist Papers: "The Federalist papers were first published on October 27, 1787 in the New York newspapers to defend and promote the ratification of the new Constitution. The Papers were written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison under the pen name "PUBLIUS." A total of 85 papers were published between 1787 and 1788." (http://www.augur.demon.co.uk/federalist-papers/index.htm, November 16, 1998).
p. 70: Paul Robeson: (1898-1976) African American actor, singer, political activist, athlete and overall genius. Played the title role in Othello innumerable times.
pp. 75-76: The Spanish lines translate roughly as follows (forgive me; my Spanish is rusty):
"Gunnar, make a speech using the word ‘to write,’ please."
"I’m going to write poems like Octavio Paz and Kid Frost."
"Who?"
"Octavio Paz was an activist and ‘phat’ [<<gordiflón>> means "fat"] poet from Mexico."
"And Kid Frost?"
"He is a hip-hop rhymer from the old guard, from the old school who lives in Pomona or in the east."
"Old school?"
"Yes, from the old school."
"OK."
"Death to the lousy foreigners/whites. I don’t speak this language and I want to play bingo. I’ve had it up to here; time to show and prove-oh."
"Enough, Gunnar."
p. 78. Mussolini: Benito Mussolini (1883-1945). Fascist dictator of Italy 1922-1943. Extremely brutal and oppressive.
p. 79. Osteoporosis: A bone disease. Shaolin monk: Shaolin is a type of Chinese philosophy; it helps form the ethical and philosophical principles behind one type of Kung Fu, a martial art. Lao Tzu: Ancient Chinese philosopher who wrote the Tao te Ching, or The Simple Way, the foundation of Taoism. Riefenstahl: Leni Riefenstahl was Adolf Hitler’s favorite propaganda filmmaker. Nazi films often depicted the alleged "superiority" of whites. Nubians: Black African people who live in an area beginning in southern Egypt. Nubians were extremely powerful militarily in the ancient world.
p. 84: Declerk: Refers to F.W. DeKlerk, past president of South Africa, which is the leading supplier of the world’s diamonds, both decorative and industrial.
p. 91: Mr. Tillis Everett: Suggests Emmett Till, the young man from Chicago who was lynched in 1955 for whistling at a white woman while visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi. The incident helped spur the then-young modern Civil Rights Movement.
p. 93: Sonar: Sound Navigation Ranging. System used to locate objects (especially submarines) that cannot be detected by sight by sending out sounds and allowing them to bounce back to the source, thus determining the object’s distance from the source. Bats use a natural form of sonar. They are not blind, by the way, but they do rely on their hearing for navigation, which is how they get around in dark caverns or at night.
p. 99: Mrs. Kim: There are now, and have been for the last twenty years or so, fairly ugly tensions between African Americans and Korean-Americans in Los Angeles and other major cities, due to racist beliefs many members of each group hold about the other. See the entry for p. 133 below.
p. 103: Biblical passages: So far as I can tell, these passages are random and meaningless or, in the case of the one from Peter, nonexistent.
p. 107: No M.O.: M.O. means "modus operandi," or method of procedure. To have no M.O. would mean one is chaotic.
p. 117: Erebus: A place of darkness on the way to hell in Greek mythology.
p. 119: ESL: English as a Second Language program.
p. 127: Five-finger discounts: Theft, shoplifting.
p. 129: Eric Dolphy: Late Jazz multi-instrumentalist. Very avant-garde (that is, before the guard, advanced, ahead of one’s time). You can hear a sample of his music near the bottom of the professor’s home page: http://mailer.fsu.edu/~dbcarr/index.html.
p. 132: Fort Sumter: the site of the battle that really started the U.S. Civil War in earnest. In the context of the novel, "Fort Sumter" would be Beverly Hills or other areas where the hated rich of Los Angeles live.
p. 133: Latasha Harlins: African American girl shot and killed in the back by Korean-American liquor store owner Soon Ja Du, who claimed that Harlins was going to rob her of one bottle of orange juice after Harlins hit her with her hand. Store videotape of the incident recorded Soon shooting Harlins as she was walking away. Soon was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in October 1991 and sentenced to community service for the killing. This raised racial tensions—especially between African Americans and Korean-Americans—in already tense Los Angeles, which was horrified by the tape of the Rodney King beating in March 1991.
p. 138. El Campesino Real: Translates roughly as "The Royal Farmworker." It resembles "El Camino Real," or "The King’s Highway," which was the route along which Spanish missionaries established Catholic missions in California in the 1700s and 1800s. The El Camino Real is now marked by signs with faux (fake) mission bells on top.
p. 139: Bert Williams: African American performer who was famous for his comedic routines as a minstrel (performers who acted out comedy routines in blackface makeup through most of the 19th century and the first part of our own).
p. 151: "study long, study wrong." A popular expression indicating that it is possible to think too much or to study the wrong things in school.
p. 159: Petri dish. Used to breed bacteria and other micoscopic organisms for scientific research.
p. 166: Sigmund Freud: Austrian psychologist (1856-1939) who pioneered the influential, if controversial, technique of psychoanalysis. Carl Jung: Former disciple of Freud who proposed alternate theories about the human mind and culture. Erik Erikson: (1902-1994) German psychologist who was heavily influenced by Sigmund Freud.
p. 169: General MacArthur: American general of WWII responsible for the Pacific theater of the war and therefore partially responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers and civilians.
p. 170: Six Pennants Mystic Mount: Six Flags’ Magic Mountain, an amusement park located in the mountains about one hour northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
p. 175: "…stay black, and die." The end of the Black folk expression, "I don’t have to do anything but stay black, and die."
p. 177: Choate: "Inchoate" means "imperfectly formed," so "choate" would be its opposite.
p. 187: John Brown: (1800-1859) White radical who led other whites and former slaves in a violent assault upon Harper’s Ferry, Virginia in October 1859, for which he was later tried and executed. The incident struck fear into the heart of Southern slaveholders, inspired slaves and abolitionists who heard of it, and was one of the key events that led to the U.S. Civil War.
p. 188: Abbie Hoffmann: A leader of the left-wing radical group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the late 1960s. Che Guevara: Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928-1967) was one of the leaders of the Cuban revolution and a hero of many American radicals in the 1960s and 1970s. "We Shall Overcome": Major song of the Civil Rights Movement.
p. 191: Fay Wray: Actress who played opposite the title star in the original "King Kong" film.
p. 196: M’m’mofo Gottobelezi: For the first name, think of a certain twelve-letter curse word that begins with "mother"; for the last name, sound out each syllable, with the last ‘e’ pronounced like a long ‘a.’ This name and character suggest Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, the contemporary black South African leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party, who opposed Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress under apartheid and still does so today. Neville Chamberlain: British Prime Minister from 1937-1940 who tried to appease Adolf Hitler under the belief that if he allowed Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia, Hitler would not attack or attempt to conquer any more territory. As World War II shows us, Chamberlain was about as wrong as you can get; Hitler quickly took the rest of Czechoslovakia and invaded Poland, starting the bloodiest war in world history.
p. 199: ‘Sieg Heil! Kill All Niggers! Auslander Raus!’: "Sieg Heil" was the Nazi salute normally given to or by Adolf Hitler. "Auslander Raus" (German) means "foreigners out!" It was one of the Nazis rallying cries as they tried to create a "pure" Germany.
p. 208: kamikaze: Japanese word that translates as "divine wind." Japanese kamikaze pilots during World War II (1939-1945) would dive their explosive-laden planes into Allied ships in attempts—frequently successful—to destroy or damage them, killing themselves in the process.
p. 214: Flying Chaucer: Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) was one of the most famous poets in English history. His Canterbury Tales remains a literary classic to this day. Kwasi Moto: Sounds like Quasimodo, the hunchbacked man featured in Victor Hugo’s "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." "Uncle Sam I Am": Compare Dr. Seuss’s children’s book, Green Eggs and Ham. Mark: slang for a punk or wimp.
p. 217: Waiting for Godot: Famous experimental play by Samuel Beckett. Newport 1961: Newport, Rhode Island is the site of the Newport Jazz Festival, where many famous Jazz and Blues performers have played.
p. 225: Dixiecrat: A member of the Democratic Party who tends to support positions held by the Old South (such as opposition to integration and support of so-called "States’ Rights"). The late former Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, was a typical Dixiecrat. COINTELPRO: Acronym for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) COunterINTELligence PROgram, a system of illegal wiretaps, informants, infiltrators and forged documents that was used to undermine various individuals and groups the U.S. government and/or FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover disliked, including the Black Panther Party and Martin Luther King, Jr., in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Introduction: While Gloria Naylor’s novel Linden Hills may be read and enjoyed without ever having read Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy), knowing a little about the way Dante mapped out Hell in Inferno (Hell), the first volume of the classic work, can help us to understand why Naylor has set up the community of Linden Hills the way she does. What we will see is a system that Naylor uses to create a portrait and critique of African American communities and individuals.
Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) wrote the Divina Commedia as an epic poem that would map and evaluate a system of values within the universe as he understood it in his time. In Dante’s universe, Satan is at the center, while God is at the circumference, or in the heavens. We should also keep in mind that in the 13th and 14th centuries, Earth was still considered the center of the universe; everything revolved around it. The closer you get to Satan, the more evil you are; the closer you get to God, the more divine.
In Inferno, Dante shows us what happens to the dead being punished in Hell. Hell consists of nine circles. Satan resides at the ninth circle, the core of evil. The narrative of the Inferno is driven by Dante’s journey with his hero, ancient Roman poet Virgil (author of the classic Aeneid), through the circles of Hell. To get closer to Satan, you must, of course, descend through the circles. The dead who reside at the first circle were guilty of lesser sins while alive; those at the ninth circle, the worst. They are the ones who have perverted every divine thing God dictated.
Here is a general description of Hell’s organization, including the circles of Hell, divided by the type of sinners inhabiting them. I have chosen not to include all the other characters that Dante and Virgil encounter on their descent to save time and space, but they do have important roles in the poem, and some parallels within Linden Hills. Most of this information was gleaned from John Ciardi’s translation of The Divine Comedy (New York: Norton, 1977).
Outside Hell: First, Dante is told that he is being protected by mythological figures with the gifts of compassion, Divine Light (perception/knowledge/wisdom), and the contemplative life (so Dante will be able to interpret what he sees). He and Virgil then head into Hell’s Vestibule, where they encounter the Gate of Hell, where they read this inscription:
I AM THE WAY INTO THE CITY OF WOE.
I AM THE WAY TO A FORSAKEN PEOPLE.
I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL SORROW.
SACRED JUSTICE MOVED MY ARCHITECT.
I WAS RAISED HERE BY DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE,
PRIMORDIAL LOVE AND ULTIMATE INTELLECT.
ONLY THOSE ELEMENTS TIME CANNOT WEAR
WERE MADE BEFORE ME, AND BEYOND TIME I STAND.
ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE.
In the Vestibule are found the opportunists, those souls who lived for neither good nor evil, but instead only for themselves.
Circles:
A HINT:
To understand how Naylor uses Dante’s system as a model, the first thing
you should do is reverse the numbering of the circles of hell (but not
the people who occupy them) to match those of the Crescents of Linden
Hills. Then as you read, use this handout to consider how (or if) Naylor
compares the characters residing in Linden Hills to those in Dante, and
why.
Essential Black Books
The following list is an EXCELLENT starting place for those who wish to continue their studies of African American history, literature and culture. This is by no means a complete list. Many other books either in print or out of print and found only in libraries are also important for one reason or another. Not all of the books are of equal quality. Most scholars of African American/Black Studies agree, though, that all of the books below will provide you with great insights into key issues in the past, present and future of African and African American culture.
The first one hundred (100) selections were compiled by the Organization of Black Students at Mercer University. The rest are the Professor’s additions. The first 100 are in chronological order; the remainder are not in order of preference or quality, beyond all of the books being extremely well done and valuable to any reader of African American literature, culture, and history.
Back to Top of Page