1. Re-read pages 25-30. How do the speaker's questions reveal major issues
Trethewey has with the history of the Native Guard? List those issues as they are discussed in this poem (putting line numbers or phrases in parentheses alongside the issues please).
2. What do you learn about mother-daughter relationship from the poems in Part I. Characterize the nature of that relationship using quotations from the poems and brief summary of details as your evidence.
3. How does Part III serve as a commentary on both Parts I and II? Explain.
4.Look at the last poem. How does that poem work as a microcosm of the whole book? Explain. Be sure to look up the word "native" in the OED.
4. According to the OED, the second definition of "native" is "an animal or plant of indigenous origin or growth." Throughout the book, Trethewey discloses how she was called degrading names growing up, such as "mulatto," "half-breed" and "zebra." Her own father even calls her a "crossbreed" in one of his poems ("Her Swing"), which was something that deeply hurt her; "cross-breed" is a term for an animal or plant, not a person—just like the definition of "native" in this context.
ReplyDeleteTretheway's issues of injustice can be traced back all the way to her birth where she was not really recognized by the state of Mississippi since her parents were of two different races. In a similar way, the Louisiana Native Guards were also treated as less than equal in their own society and were not recognized for all of their hard work and services (http://www2.netdoor.com/~jgh), which is another concern Tretheway addresses in her poetry.
In her last poem, "South," Trethewey delineates these issues that are found throughout “Native Guard,” bringing them to the forefront for a final time in the book. She refers to the Native Guards as "bone-thin phalanx" who were "flanking the roadside," and to herself as some of the degrading names she spoke of in her earlier pieces. The poem ends with the lines, "...I return/to Mississippi, state that made a crime/of me—mulatto, half-breed—native/in my native land, this place they'll bury me." Thus, in this context, the word "native" is a reference to the way she was made to feel less than human throughout her life by being likened to animals/plants, which is very similar to the way the Louisiana Native Guards were made to feel. Not only does the book carry a theme of injustice, but in reading her poetry, it is clear that Trethewey also carried the heavy weight and pain that those unjust labels created.
The relationship between Natasha Trethewey and her mother is complex and layered. It is clearly stated on the dedication page that Trethewey loved her mother. "For my mother, in memory" are the first words the reader sees before Part I begins. Her mother inspired her and gave her inner strength to create something beautiful out of heartache.
ReplyDeleteThe first poem in Part I entitled, “ The Southern Crescent” describes the journey Trethewey’s mother makes across the country during her adolescence to meet her estranged father. Similarly to her mother, Trethewey lacks a paternal figure in her life. While the mother and daughter rely on each other, Trethewey, like many children, is a product of “childish vanity”. She is curious about the world around her and the nature of herself. Trethewey’s mother altruistically offers her daughter an emotional and spiritual “home”.
Trethewey does not mention having any conversations with her mother about her stepfather’s abuse or the loneliness that her mother endures throughout her life; however, Trethewey writes a poem about her mother’s attempt to hide her bruises “with makeup” and missing teeth with dentures (11). Her mother wanted a normal life for herself and her daughter. After her mother’s death, Trethewey questions the close relationship she had with her mother in life: “ The picture we took that first morning, the front yard a beautiful, strange place—why on the back has someone made a list of our names, the date, the event: nothing of what’s inside—mother, stepfather’s fist?” (10).
Without her mother, Trethewey feels empty and bruised. She is emotionally wounded. Part of her own identity is her role as a daughter. She uses the fruit bowl as a metaphor to the emptiness she feels: “ I’m too late, again, another space emptied by loss. Tomorrow, the bowl I have yet to fill” (13).
2. Part I allows the reader to learn a lot about mother-daughter relationships. The narrator’s relationship with her mother is one of honor. She respects her mother in all ways and shows this through her words of poetry. She honor’s her mother in a unique way. Her respect for her mother is noticing the suffering she is going through and not ignoring it like all others, including her mother herself. For example, in Photograph: Ice Storm, 1971 the narrator notices her mother’s pain when she states, “Why the rough edge of beauty? Why/the tired face of a woman, suffering,/made luminous by the camera’s eye?” (10, 1-3). The narrator sees the pain in her mother but sees the pain as a question because as a child the answers are unclear. Because the narrator notices the pain in her mother, she can feel the pain herself.
ReplyDeleteWe also learn that mother-daughter relationships are based on needing each other in order for one’s life to stay on track. Mothers are a guide for their daughters and without them daughters can feel lost. For example, the poem Letter demonstrates how the loss of a mother can affect the daughter’s life. The narrator writes, “…except/that I write errant, a slip between letters…/What was I saying? I had to cross the word out,/start again, explain what I know best/because of the way you left me: how suddenly/a simple errand, a letter-everything-can go wrong” (12, 3-16). Her mother’s death distracts even the simple things in life, such as writing a letter. However, what is important to know is that the word errant she wrote means going off track. The mother-daughter relationship is very powerful because if it is physically destroyed (death) the one who lives such as the daughter continues life with emptiness and no one to guide her.
All of Part I describes the longing for the author’s mother, she misses her greatly. The writing of Part I alone shows the closeness she had with her mother and how the way she died is unsettling for her. Part I also shows us that mother-daughter relationships are very deep. The loneliness the author feels after losing her mother proves that a mother-daughter connection is never completely lost because if it was the author would not feel lonely. It is true that “Death stops the body’s work, the souls a journeyman” (8, 6). Yes, death separates mother and daughter physically but the soul of the mother lives on in the daughter because of the life and bond they shared together.
The mother-daughter relationship in the first part, is one of both great love and longing,but also of one of pity and sadness. So in a sense it is a bittersweet relationship. You can see the love she had for her mother as a constant throughout all the poems. In "Genus Narcissus" you can feel the pride she felt for giving her mother such beautiful flowers only to have them wither away and die. How to her the flowers "spoke" of being taken with yourself and to her mother simply die early. I feel that shows she felt her mother to be a weak woman, who once maybe had strength but over the years was worn down and began to resemble the "graveside flowers".
ReplyDeleteIn the poem "Photograph:Ice Storm, 1971" we see that her mother may have smiled for the camera but behind that smile was "the tired face of a woman, suffering". That even though from the outside all looks magical unless you look deeper, you will never get the whole story. in "What is Evidence" you see that her mother was physically abused by her stepfather. "The fleeting bruises she'd cover with make up", "not the teeth she wore instead of her own" to have watched your mother go threw this must have been a horrible experience for any child. Especially when you knew the strength your mother used to have. To have travelled all the way to California by herself, to become someone who allows herself to be abused. This all shows the pity she had for her mother.
Then there is the longing that is painfully apparent in the latter poems in part one. The hollow feeling she has when emptying her mother's house, "another space emptied by your loss". Her mother's untimely death left her with an emptiness that she can not only not understand but does not know how to recover from. The feelings she has can only come from a deep seeded love and devotion that can only come from the unconditional love between a mother and child.
From reading the poems in Part I there is a cry for a motherly figure. Her poems express her deep love for her mother. The poems help to embrace and show the reader that she truly loves and misses her mother. Her mother’s death had a huge impact in her life. As it would be in any young girls life, to lose a mother at such a young age is detrimental. You can see her true love for her mother because she dedicated this book in her memory. You can see that she took her mother’s presence there in her life for granted when she was a young girl in her poem “Genus Narcissus”. She went and picked daffodils for her mother. But they were not fully developed daffodils they were “early blossoms” (7). She picked them with out really knowing or really giving the flowers the ability to bloom, just like the relationship with her mother. While she was able to spend her childhood with her mom it was short lived. Her stepfather took her mother from her. Although her mother never really shared with her what her relationship but Natasha knew. She wrote about it in her poem “What is Evidence”. She knew that her mother was beaten and tried to cover it up so Natasha couldn’t see it. “Not the fleeting bruises she’d cover up/with makeup, a dark patch as if imprint/of a scope she’d pressed her eye too close to’”(11). Her mother would try and hide any imperfections within her relationship with her stepfather but Natasha knew. Daughters always know when mothers are hiding things. It’s like it was built in our DNA. If a daughter is really close with their mother they know they always know. So it is understandable that Natasha felt such a void once her mother was gone. “…I am too late/ again, another space emptied by loss” (13). Natasha wishes she could have kept her mother around for a lot longer then she actually was. This is seen in her poem “Myth”. She keeps her mother always on her mind in Erebus, a place between earth and Hades, a place of darkness, because she is too afraid to let her go from her thoughts and her memories. She keeps her mother alive in her dreams. When she sleeps she can see her mother, still alive still breathing. And when she wakes her mother is dead. “ In dreams you live.” (14). Natasha deep love for her mother runs throughout her poetry and helps to keep her thoughts about her mother alive.
ReplyDelete-Megan Scully
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ReplyDeleteQuestion 4
ReplyDeleteNatasha Trethewey’s last poem “South” works to re-capture all of the issues and emotions that arise throughout the course of her book, invoking them for a final time in the last two pages. The OED lists several different meanings for the term “native,” as an adjective. The definition that I found to be the most fitting in relation to the book as a whole was the third meaning of the word which stated, “Senses relating to natural state or condition. Inherent, innate; belonging to or connected with something by nature or natural constitution.” (Oxford English Dictionary Online)
For the majority of Trethewey’s early life, she had been treated unfairly in the South, the region she had grown up in and come to feel part of. She was forced to endure discrimination as she was often defined by her race, rather than looked at as an individual human-being. Her poem “South” recounts the pain she felt as a child, “I return to Mississippi, state that made a crime of me – mulatto, half-breed – native in my native land…” (46) Although her earliest memories of Mississippi are tainted by prejudice, she “returns” to the land she feels connected with by her sense of inherence.
Trethewey’s piece “South,” also intertwines the similar injustice that the Native Guards had undergone and pays tribute to the men who died without recognition, for a final time in the book. “I returned to a country battlefield where colored troops fought and died… unburied until earth’s green sheet pulled over them, unmarked by any headstones.” (46) Within a single, shocking line, Trethewey describes the gruesomeness of their death, “…Where their bodies swelled and blackened beneath the sun,” emphasizing the agony these individuals suffered without ever being acknowledged for the sacrifice of their lives. (46)
Her piece “South” acts to reiterate the raw feelings that Trethewey so candidly expresses throughout the entirety of “Native Guard.” The poem closes with a profound statement, “…Native in my native land, this place they’ll bury me.” (46) Trethewey uses the term “native” in her last poem to convey that she too, like the Native Guards, belongs to the land. The unburied bodies of the Native Guard have long become one with the earth and the land, just as Tretheway will one day. In this concluding piece in the book, Trethewey is able to unite her admiration for her mother and for the Native Guards in a way which seems to bring new life to her poems, rather than draw a curtain to the issues she raises.
2. The mother-daughter relationship in Part 1 speaks of codependency but no real true understanding of the other. It is clear that Trethewey and her mother need each other to survive within their roles. In “Genus Narcissus,” Natasha gives her mother a bunch of daffodils, “proud of myself for giving my mother some small thing.” Even at that young age we all know when you give your mother a ‘bouquet’ of pulled flowers, Natasha knows it is more than that to her mother. Her mother needs something of happiness, even if it is small. This act speaks of the dependency Natasha can feel coming from her mother, she knows her mother needs her because of the small joys she can bring. Natasha may not have known that feeling of need for her mother until after her death, I see it in her poem, “Letter,” “because of the way you left me: how suddenly a simple errand, a letter—everything—can go wrong.” Her mother left her alone. She had to clean out the house and learn to live on and that’s difficult when their relationship has been one of need for so long. Natasha’s mother doesn’t need her anymore but what is Natasha to do without being needed? Become “errant”? Stray or wander until she finds something new that needs her? In a co-dependent relationship, there are major problems when one leaves.
ReplyDeleteIt is surprising to me that Natasha feels that she needs her mother at all. It seems as if her mother doesn’t understand her at all, in fact, they are very different people. Again in “Genus Narcissus,” the differences between mother and daughter are on display, “Be taken with yourself, they said to me; Die early, to my mother.” Partially out of youth and age, these differences come but also because of individuality. Natasha is different from her mother and she sees it. “What the Body Can Say” is a great example of how little Natasha understood her mother in dying and death. As she sees the man at a grave clearly crying out with grief and questions for God, she remembers that last gesture of her mother. She remembers and yet still doesn’t understand. Then thinks, “what, kneeling, my face behind my hands, I might ask of God.” She wonders if context would help but honestly, it won’t, Natasha and her mother were different beings, not understood by the other, and never will be understood by the other.
I see the nature of a mother-daughter relationship here but it could just be from my own experience. I have a co-dependency with my mother, her needing me to feel joy, and me needing her for purpose but I can also recognize what little we understand of each other. While she needs me for joy, she can’t understand what gives me joy or why. And while I need her for purpose, for structure really, I can’t understand the structure that makes up her daily life. Those daffodils describe us too, “Be taken with yourself,” they say to me, “Die early,” they say to her.
Part three serves as a commentary for both parts 1 and 2 by the way Tretheway fills in the gaps that she didn’t already fill in with the first two parts. Her poem “Miscegenation,” which means a marriage between a man and women of different races, is about her parent’s marriage to each other and how they had to leave Mississippi to make their marriage real. “ In 1965 my parents broke two laws if Mississippi; they went to Ohio to marry, returned to Mississippi”(36). This poem also tells us how her parents chose her name and what her name means. Also when she was born which marks the beginning of her life but is in the third section. This poem can definitely act as a commentary about her life and when it began because of the information given in this poem.
ReplyDeleteThe next few poems also illustrate her life in more detail. The poem “My Mother Dreams Another Country” shows her mothers worries when she was pregnant with Natasha. Since marrying a black man wasn’t looked upon having a child with him surly wasn’t right in Mississippi either. “-she is married to a white man – and there are more names for what grows inside her.” “It is enough to worry about words like mongrel and the infertility of mules and mulattoes while flipping through a book of baby names (37). Her mother knew it was socially unacceptable to have an interracial baby so she was worried for her daughter’s life as well as hers. Some other poems like “Southern History” and “Blonde” show Natasha’s confusion as to who she is and why she is different then everyone else.
In “Southern History” she is in her senior year history class talking about slaves and how their life was better before the war in the old south. In her book the slaves look happy but in reality she knows they weren’t because of their color. Since she is half black I feel like she relates to them and to their pain because of her color. On of my favorites is the poem “Blonde.” This poem shows the parents uncertainty of their daughter. They know she’s different because she is “tan.” For Christmas they buy her a blonde wig with girly clothes to make her look like the norm. “Certainly it was possible-somewhere in my parents’ genes the recessive traits that might have given me a different look:” (39).
The poems in the third section act as a commentary for the first two parts because of the information it provides the reader with. The poems illustrate Natasha and her parent’s life in more detail and with more insight to her life. If these poems were placed in between the others about her life in the other two sections her life would be summed up in those two sections.
Question 3
ReplyDeletePart III serves as a commentary for Part I and II in Native Guard. Part I focuses on Trethewey’s childhood. Trethewey’s poems in Part I concentrate on her mother. The reader realizes how much Trethewey loves her mother, and how much pain Trethewey feels because of her mother’s death. Many poems focus on how Trethewey’s mother was beaten by Trethewey’s stepfather. In “After Your Death”, Trethewey compares herself to a bowl. She states “I’m too late, / again, another space emptied by loss. / Tomorrow, the bowl I have yet to fill.” (10-13). These poems let the reader know how hurt and empty Trethewey felt at this point in her life. Part II focuses on the Native Guards. She writes about Mississippi, and gives the reader insight into the history of 1863 and the battle fields. Through the poems, the reader understands how unfairly the Native Guards were treated. After the war, they were forgotten and not recognized for their bravery and hard work. Part III is a commentary of Part I and II; Part III ties Part I and II together. It includes her personal experiences, and how she is affected by racism. The poems include Trethewey’s experiences of being white and black. “My Mother Dreams Another Country” is a very moving poem that includes information from Part I and II. The poem is about her mother marrying a white man. The poem gives the reader insight into Mississippi and how her mother felt during this hard time. When Trethewey’s mother returns to Mississippi “she has come home to wait out the long months, / her room unchanged since she’s been gone: / dolls winking down from every shelf - all of them / white” (8-11). I found these lines interesting because it made me stop and think of how it must have felt to be black during that time, and to look at dolls, movies, and television shows and see all white people. The poem “Southern History” was also very moving because it shows how people lie about history. People change history, and certain individuals do not get the recognition they deserve. History is taught to students, and sometimes it contains lies. The way history is taught can be misleading. In this poem she shows how the teacher remained quiet and guarded a secret; however, Trethewey also remained silent. Lastly, “Incident” also contained pieces from Part I and II. This poem describes an incident on Christmas where KKK members came to Trethewey’s home and lit crosses on fire on her lawn. This poem shows that Trethewey still dealt with racism and violence when she was a child. The last line of the poem states “we tell this story every year” (20). This line is very important because it shows the reader how Trethewey does not want history to be forgotten or sugar coated. History happened. Racism happened. Wars happened. History should not be played with or lied about. Trethewey’s poems gives the Native’s Guard recognition which they deserve. Her poems also show readers the pain Trethewey felt throughout her life due to racism and her mother’s death.
Nicole Scott:
ReplyDeletePart 1 of the book addresses the struggle Trethewey endured while trying to form a strong mother-daughter bond with her mother. The poem "Genus Narcissus" talks about a young Natasha bringing her mother flowers and feeling the childish pride and glory that came with presenting her mother with the gift. However, her mother just saw the act as killing the flowers for no reason as represented by the final line of the poem, "Be taken with yourself, they said to me; die early, to my mother" (7). I also found it interesting that this poem, which ends with an allusion to her mothers untimely death, if followed by the poem "Graveyard Blues" addressing Trethewey's struggles with the concept that time does not necessarily stop to allow grieving when a tragedy strikes. We all still have to go on with our lives as time continues.
The poem "Myth" really spoke to me because it really addressed Tretewey's pain coping with the aftermath of her mother's death. In this poem, she is longing for her mother and painstakingly calling to her in her dreams for support. While reading this poem you can feel Trethewey's heart-wrenching sadness in each word. She begins, and finishes, the poem by saying "I was asleep while you were dying" (14). This line made me think that Trethewey feels some guilt because she was aware of the abuse endured by her mother at her step-father's hands and she could not do anything to stop it. However, I think that this line also speaks to her mother's dissatisfaction with life as addressed in the first poem of Part 1, "The Southern Crescent." In this poem, the narrator says, "she is sure we can leave home today, bound only for whatever awaits us, the sun now setting behind us, the rails humming with anticipation, the train pulling us towards the end of another day" (6). This line tells me that Trethewey was well aware of her mothers unhappiness even as a child and feels that her death is not necessarily as swift as her murder, but that she endured a long, painful, progressive dying as a result of her unsatisfied life.
Question 1:
ReplyDeleteThe speaker addresses many questions which reveal major issues Trethewey has with the history of the Native Guard.
1. The first issue addressed is the idea that the past should be recorded and not forgotten. It holds people accountable for their actions. It also allows people to learn from the mistakes of the past so they are not repeated.
“… I now use ink/ to keep record, a closed book, not the lure of memory- flawed, changeful- that dulls the lash/ for the master, sharpens it for the slave” (11-4).
“… even this journal, near full/ with someone else’s words, overlapped now,/ crosshatched beneath mine. On every page,/ his story intersecting with my own” (25-8).
“… It was a dark man/ removed his shirt, revealed the scars, crosshatched/ like the lines in this journal, on his back./…we know now to tie down what we will keep” (49-56).
“there are things which must be accounted for” (126).
2. The second issue is that the Native Guard was never given credit for their part in the war. They were sacrificing the same thing, their lives. In return they were simply forgotten as if they never existed.
“… Still, we’re called supply units-/ not infantry- and so we dig trenches,/ haul burdens for the army no less heavy/ than before…” (18).
“Some names shall deck that page of history/ as it is written on stone. Some will not” (99-100).
3. They are equals, but they are not treated as equals.
“…And are we not the same,/ slaves in the hands of the master, destiny?” (39-40).
“… We’re all bondsman here, each/ to the other…” (59-60).
“Death makes equals of us all: a fair master” (112).
In Part I, the mother-daughter relationship seem to be characterized by the narrator’s longing to understand her mother’s existence by searching through her memories of her mother’s life. She seems to see her mother in nature, in her travels and in herself. There is a lot of repetition which shows signs of endless searching that help bring clarity, although the unanswered questions that only her mother can give, creates sadness within the tone. The ongoing, continual image of something “pulling” “repeating” and which could mean the narrator does not know all the details of her mother’s life, but by imagining the physical elements help her to define solidity of her mother’s memory.
ReplyDeleteIn “The Southern Crescent,” there is a sense of an endless movement of discovery that the narrator yearns for. The train is ongoing, moving and represents a sense of progress to the narrator, so that by the end of the poem she does actually find peace and understanding of her loss, “…the train pulling us toward the end of another day. I watch each small town pass before my window until the light goes, and the reflection of my mother’s face appears, clearer now as evening comes on, dark and certain” (6).
“Graveyard Blues,” shows the reader what the narrator has endured as we see the grave yard scene and the daughter eager to be the “witness” of her mother’s existence. The painful realization that she must leave her mother’s physical remains is evident but an image of her mother’s journey continuing allows her to walk away from her grave.
“What the Body Can Say,” the narrator begins the poem, “At first I think she is calling a child,” which alerts the reader to the assumption that the child is she and the neighbor is her mother, or maybe it’s what “we” want to believe, and not what actually is. The visual is that of a mother calling a child seeking her, the narrator instead of her seeking her balances her perception of a mutual unconditional love between both mother and daughter equally longing to be with one another. “…she’s giving up calling now, left me to imagine her inside the house waiting…left me to wonder that I too might lift my voice, sure of someone out there…certain the sounds I make are enough to call someone home (15).
It is past time for this post.I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.
ReplyDelete